Galileo Lobs out of Orbit onto the Public Purse

A consortium of major aerospace and telecom concerns, including EADS, Thales, Inmarsat, Alcatel-Lucent, Finmeccanica, AENA, Hispasat, and TeleOp has failed to agree on a financial way forward for Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo. The European Commission (EC) has now concluded that the system will have to be built with public funds if it is to be built at all. In consequence, the commissioners have put forward proposals for the stumbling space project to be completed with taxpayers' money - not the private finance as was originally envisaged. The four billion euro (US$5.4bn) system should be up and working by 2012. Once the public sector has built it, and assumed all the launch risks, the consortium will get to operate Galileo. Inmarsat said it was still very keen to be part of Galileo. "Inmarsat was chosen as an operator of the system and we will be happy to continue to be the operator. We remain 100 percent convinced of the need for Galileo," said a company spokesperson. Galileo is a European Commission and European Space Agency project for a total of 30 satellites to be launched in batches by end of 2011-12. It will work alongside the US GPS and Russian Glonass systems. The present promise is for real-time positioning down to less than a meter. The Commission's solution will now go to the EU's transport ministers in June for their approval. Related Story one and two