EU Galileo satellites to be fully operational by 2011

By Staff
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Frankfurt, March 2: The European Union's answer to the U.S.Global Positioning System is on track to start around 2011, theEuropean Space Agency said in response to industry associations' fearsit could be delayed to 2014.

An ESA spokeswoman said the Galileo system, which has just onetest satellite in orbit almost 30 years after the United Stateslaunched its first GPS satellite, would have all 30 planned satellitesin operation in about four years' time.

German IT and telecoms industry association Bitkom said this weekit feared the start of the 3.4 billion-euro (.5 billion) Galileoproject would be delayed until 2014, saying competing nationalinterests were hindering the project's start.

Europe wants its own system to reduce its dependence on the UnitedStates, especially as GPS is a military-run programme whose signals canbe unilaterally switched off.

When Galileo was first mooted near the end of the 1990s, it was envisaged going into operation in 2008.

The ESA spokeswoman said it was now expected that a basic systemof four satellites, which would not yet cover the whole of the earth,would likely be in place in 2008 or 2009.

Telecoms, navigation and road-toll companies, among others, areeagerly awaiting the start of Galileo, which they expect to unleash amarket worth tens of billions of euros.

Bitkom called on the German government, which currently holds theEU presidency, to act. It issued a statement in conjunction with theFederation of German Industries (BDI) and the German telematicsassociation TelematicsPro.

''Certain member states keep slowing down the project because oftheir individual interests. The government must work on winning themover,'' Bitkom Vice-President Joerg Menno Harms said in the statement.

Bitkom, wary of upsetting other European nations, declined to giveconcrete examples of how individual countries were holding back theproject.

An industry source mentioned the setting up of a quality-controlcentre in Spain, in addition to operational control centres alreadybeing built in Germany and Italy, as an example of unnecessary work.

''The basic problem is whether Europe is ready to build that sortof system and to be more pro-European than pro-national,'' anotherindustry source said, declining to be named.


Reuters>

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