EU Clears the Last Political Hurdle for the Launch of the Galileo Satellite Navigation System

The European Parliament gave its backing last month to the deployment phase of Galileo, the EU’s most ambitious technology project to date and its only space-oriented one, paving the way for system to be operational in five years time.

The project is intended for civilian use for the time being, with military use potential still under discussion among EU member-nations.

Its costs are estimated at around €3.4 billion (US$5.2 billion), which will be covered by the EU budget. Discussions on raising private funds to cover some of the costs failed.

Approval by the lawmakers was the final political hurdle for Galileo. Only a year ago, the project was all but abandoned after a consortium of private technology companies withdrew their support.

Today, everything seems to be in place for the project, which experts say will offer a multitude of benefits for Europe, while decreasing EU reliance on other satellite systems, particularly the US system.

‘Sovereignty for Europe’

“Galileo is to some extent also about the profile of the EU in a world where the US, China, Russia and India have or are planning satellite navigation systems of their own. Without Galileo, whose services would we use?” Michele Cercone, European Commission’s transport spokesman, told ISN Security Watch.

“Apart from this, the security aspect is an important one due to the vulnerability of all GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite] systems to hostile actions.”

Last month, EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot put it succinctly, saying that Galileo represented “a tool of sovereignty for Europe.”

Originally, the EU planned to establish a public-private partnership to take over the deployment and commercial operation of the satellite navigation system. The private sector was meant to provide two-thirds of the funding and European governments the rest.

A consortium that included France’s European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company and Thales and Italy’s Finmeccanica pulled out last year over profitability concerns and additional costs. But the private sector will still be engaged in the commercialization phase after 2013, helping to build the system as contractors, rather than joint owners as initially planned.

The political decision to launch the Galileo project was taken at the Nice European Council in December 2000 by the EU heads of state . The aim was that the project would be in operation in 2008 after development and the deployment of the satellites.

After negotiations with Euro-GNSS, a private consortium of eight European companies, European transport ministers agreed in June 2007 that the EU’s collaboration with the consortium should end and that the next stage should be managed by the public sector.

System tests and difficult negotiations between EU and the US are other factors that have kept the project five years behind schedule.

Harmonizing Galileo and GPS

Currently, there are two radio navigation satellite networks: the US’ Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia’s Glosnass. Both were designed during the Cold War for military purposes, but Glosnass is no longer fully operational.

The Galileo project is similar to the GPS, providing satellite-guided navigation for the general public; from motorists and sailors to mapmakers.

The GPS is widely used but it has shortcomings; a mediocre and varying degree of accuracy; limited reliability, especially in regions in extreme latitudes (crossed by many aviation routes), in densely populated areas and town centers.

The system’s predominantly military character means civilian users could be cut off in the event of a crisis. There are no guarantees or liability in the event of an accident caused by GPS error.

Unlike the GPS, the EU’s Galileo is intended primarily for civilian use, and will only be subject to shutdown for military purposes in extreme circumstances. There is no decision as of yet how Galileo will be used by European armies, though the EC spokesperson told ISN Security Watch that “surveys conducted among the EU member-states suggest [...] that some military authorities have an interest in the use of Galileo.”

The US reserves the right to limit the signal strength or accuracy of the GPS or shut down public access completely so that only the US military and its allies would be able to use it in time of conflict.

“The aim of the Galileo program is to establish the first global satellite radio navigation and positioning infrastructure specifically designed for civilian purposes. The system established under the Galileo program is completely independent of other existing or potential systems,” the Hungarian European Parliament raporteur on Galileo, Etelka Barsi-Pataky, wrote in a report last month.

At first, the Galileo system was intended as a competitor to the GPS, but now the US and Europe have agreed to cooperate, striking a deal to make Galileo compatible with the GPS, thus ending the trans-Atlantic row over the issue.

In 2004, the EU agreed to switch to a range of frequencies known as “Binary Offset Carrier 1.1,” allowing both EU and US forces to block each other’s signals in the battlefield without disabling the entire system. The EU also agreed to address the “mutual concerns related to the protection of allied and US national security capabilities.”

As a result of achieving harmonization, the signals emitted by the two systems will permit users to use either system - or both at the same time - with a single receiver.

Users will have access to a network of more than 57 satellites (30 from Galileo and 27 from the GPS), providing greater precision than either system alone could have.

If one system breaks down or is shuttered for security reasons, the other would still be operational.

The Galileo menu

The first stage of the Galileo program was agreed upon officially on 26 May 2003 by the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Galileo will be based on 30 satellites placed in three orbits at an altitude of 24,000 kilometers and covering the entire surface of Earth with a network of ground control stations. Each satellite will be equipped with an atomic clock providing extremely precise time measurements, making it possible to determine the location of any stationary or moving object to within 1 meter.

Galileo will have two ground operations centers; one near Munich, Germany, and another in Fucino, 130 kilometers east of Rome.

Several non-EU countries have joined the project, including China, which plans to invest €230 million in Galileo. Israel, Ukraine, India, Marocco, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have also jumped on the bandwagon, with negotiations on cooperation scenarios ongoing with the Russian Federation.

According to Cercone, the Galileo project - named after Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei - has much to offer Europe, including “general economic benefits, innovation, employment, safety, security and, last but not least, new technology.”

According to some EU calculations, the Galileo project is expected to generate at least 150,000 jobs. The number of personal navigation devices sold last year jumped five-fold from 2005, and the European market is expected to be worth €135 billion by 2025.

The system will offer several service levels, from open access to restricted access:

* An open, free basic service, mainly involving applications for the general public and services of general interest. This service is comparable to that provided by the civil GPS, but with improved quality and reliability

* A commercial service facilitating the development of professional applications and offering enhanced performance compared with the basic service, particularly in terms of service guarantees

* A “vital” service (Safety of Life Service) for safety-critical applications, such as aviation and shipping

* A search and rescue service that will greatly improve existing capabilities

* A public regulated service (PRS), encrypted and resistant to jamming and interference, reserved principally for the public authorities responsible for civil protection, national security and law enforcement. This will enable secured applications to be developed in the EU, and could prove in particular to be an important tool in improving the instruments used by the EU to combat illegal exports and illegal immigration.

The range of services provided by Galileo is designed to meet practical objectives and expectations, from improving the coverage of open-access services in urban environments (to cover 95 percent of urban districts compared with the 50 percent currently covered by the GPS alone). Experts say this will benefit the 160 million private vehicles in Europe and enable the use of satellite navigation applications “indoors” - in buildings and even in tunnels, or indeed via mobile telephone services based on identifying the caller’s position.

The increased precision and availability of the system also promises to benefit the insurance sector, by aiding in tracking stolen vehicles, for instance, and in high-tech industries such as oil prospecting, precision crop management and freight management.

By Ekrem Krasniqi in Brussels for ISN Security Watch

Ekrem Krasniqi, a senior ISN Security Watch correspondent, is based in Brussels.

Source ISN

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Net News Publisher