The European Commission yesterday handed three companies a Ôé¼1 billion satellite contract for Galileo, Europe's version of the Global Positioning System.
The Commission awarded three of the six contracts needed for work to commence on the Galileo project. A consortium led by Germany's OHB System and including UK-based SSTL won the first order of 14 satellites worth Ôé¼566 million, beating rival bidder EADS-Astrium.
EADS-Astrium, however, still has an opportunity to bid for building the remainder of the satellite network and will already benefit from the first contract, since it holds a major stake in SSTL.
The contract for system support services was awarded to ThalesAleniaSpace of Italy, a joint venture between Thales and Finmeccanica. The agreement is worth Ôé¼85 million.
French firm Arianespace won the Ôé¼397 million contract to launch the satellites two at a time using Russian Soyuz rockets. The first launch is scheduled for October 2012.
It is hoped that the whole Galileo system will go live by 2014.
The procurement process commenced in July 2008, with contracts awarded on the basis of the best value for money.
Galileo is designed to give Europe ÔÇÿstrategic independenceÔÇÖ from the Global Positioning System, which is run by the US military. It will also compete with RussiaÔÇÖs Glonass system.
When complete, the system of 30 satellites will give users more accurate navigation information than is currently available. It will be accurate to within one centimetre and have improved reception in cities and buildings.
It is expected that Galileo will therefore be able to deliver improvements across a wide range of applications, from flight navigation systems to logistics tracking.
Galileo will also contain a search-and-rescue system that can pick up distress beacon locations and send feedback.
It is hoped that the system will offer greater reliability than the GPS, which can be shut down to the general public and commandeered by the US government for military purposes in the event of a conflict.
The contracts will be signed between the companies and the European Space Agency on behalf of the Commission within the next few weeks.
The remaining contracts for the ground mission infrastructure, the ground control infrastructure and the operations will be awarded by mid-2010.
*        *        *
