ESA Puts Money Pen to Galileo Paper: Three Big Contracts

February 2, 2010

Galileo ground station at Kourou, French Guiana, to consist of a telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) station to monitor and control the Galileo constellation satellites, a sensor station (GSS) for acquisition of the satellite navigation signals, and two uplink stations (ULS) for transmission of navigation and integrity messages to the satellites.

The European Space Agency (ESA) signed the first three contracts for Galileo’s full operational capability phase on January 26:

A work order with OHB for the manufacture of 14 satellites, with delivery of the first satellite in July 2012, followed by two satellites every three months: €566 million ($777 million);
For launch services, the provision by Arianespace of five Soyuz launchers with an upgraded Fregat upper stage, to be launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, each placing two satellites in their final orbit, starting in December 2012.
For industrial system support activities from Thales Alenia Space, covering system engineering, system performance, system assembly, integration and validation, signal-in-space engineering, security engineering and product assurance: €85 million ($118.8 million).

The signing of these contracts by René Oosterlinck, ESA’s Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities, marks the official start of building the Galileo operational infrastructure. The in-orbit validation (IOV) has yet to be completed; this is envisioned to take its final step with the launch of four IOV — and eventually, operational — satellites manufactured by EADS Astrium, starting at the end of this year. The fully deployed Galileo system will consist of 30 satellites -- 27 operational and three active spares — positioned in three orbit planes at 76,187 miles above the Earth.

Also appearing at the signing ceremony at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre at Noordwijk (The Netherlands) were Matthias Ruete, Director General-Energy and Transport of the European Commission (EC), and Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General.

Yet to come this year are three further contracts, for the ground mission infrastructure, the ground control infrastructure, and operations.

As prime contractor on the space segment, OHB teamed up with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (United Kingdom). OHB will lead the system level activities and is responsible for the spacecraft platform. SSTL is responsible for the satellite payload.

A so-called framework contract was signed in December, leaving open the award of a subsequent 18 further satellites from either OHB or EADS-Astrium GmBH, depending on which company provides the most advantageous offer. The Commission intends to follow a strategy of double sourcing to lower risks, particularly in terms of delivery schedules, and to increase flexibility.

"Galileo will be Europe's own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control," ESA announced, reiterating the system’s interoperability with the GPS and GLONASS. "A user will be able to take a position with the same receiver from any of the satellites in any combination."

However, the agency continued hyperbolic European habit of asserting Galileo’s eventual yet hardly proven and, as stated, factually inaccurate superiority over GPS: "By offering dual frequencies as standard, however, Galileo will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the meter range, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system."

Finally, in a cabinet shuffle initiated by the new EC president José Manuel Barroso, the satellite navigation units G.3 (infrastructure, deployment and exploitation, directed by Paul Verhoef), G.4 (applications and intelligent transport systems, directed by Edgar Thielman), and G.5 (legal and financial aspects, directed by Fotis Karamitsos), and with them the Global Navigation Satellites System Supervision Agency (GSA), as of February 1 have moved from the Directorate for Transport and Energy (DG TREN) to the Directorate for Industry and Entrepreneurship (DG ENT).

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