Galileo: The European GNSS

The future Gallileo system is a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), which allows you to find you position via satellite. It has been requested by the European Community who is looking for independence from the American GPS system.

Unlike this one, which is firstly a military operation, the primary aim of Galileo is for civil use with eventual military operations added on, although this is still under discussion. This is also one of the biggest technical challenges for Europe, who are trying to show their capability of working together on international projects to reinforce their status as a continental power.

The Galileo project started in 2002 when fifteen European ministers set out the groundwork. The objective is to become independent from the American GPS system, controlled by the American Army who have the capability of reducing the signal, or even cutting it, if they so wish. Europe decided that they needed to have their own GNSS by 2008.

It would have to offer better precision then the GPS system and assure consistency with a large number of economical fields: transport, industry, agriculture, civil security, etc. It also has to be able to provide assurance that it will work and not depend entirely on military support.


Naissance dans la discorde
It was planned to be financed with one third of public money and two thirds from private funds, with a total investment of 3.4 billion euros. An organization was put into place by the European Commission and the ESA (European Space Agency) called the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), which was to supervise the creation of this mixed partnership, as well as arbitrating the concessions of each of the industrial groups.

Consortiums tried to get involved, but quickly quarrels broke out about the responsibilities and direction of the project, causing tension between member states as each wanted the best part for their national companies.

In 2005, two industrial groups were engaged and instead of cutting up what was deemed to be too big and providing these parts to different European countries, the GJU provided these two entities the pieces hoping that they would come to an agreement on the projects management.

The disputes didn’t end here though, leading to a delay in the process, while it was decided who would be responsible for each part. On the 10th of May 2007 a single exploration company was charged with supervising the Galileo project, which didn’t please a lot of the industrials, leading them to throw cold water on the European GNSS project.