Telespazio takes control of
Galileo Ground Facility
Telespazio has taken over management
of a Galileo satellite constellation control
centre. The company will begin cabling
the entire structure as well as installing and
integrating required systems and equipment
for the satellite constellation and mission.
Telespazio said its work will begin on the
areas dedicated to security, navigation signal
generation systems, orbital management
and atomic clocks. The control centre is
expected to be fully operational and will
be inaugurated this fall. www.telespazio.it
GIOVE-A operations
extended for another year
GIOVE-A, the first test satellite for
Europe’s Galileo navigation system, is to
remain in service for a further 12 months.
The satellite built by SSTL for ESA and
already in orbit for 41 months - 14 months
beyond its original mission design life -
will continue to provide critical data to
all of the ground users experimenting
with Galileo navigation signals. The
ESA recently approved an extension of
the GIOVE-A mission. www.sstl.co.uk
Europeans fi ght over the
Galileo Satellite Network
The politicians want one thing, economists
another, and the ESA something completely
different. The agency’s Director of
Navigation, Rene Oosterlinck, said that it
would be nothing more than good economics
to launch all 28 satellites whose contracts
would be awarded this year from the
Kourou Space Centre, in French Guyana,
South America, aboard Russian-built Soyuz
delivery systems. However, others show
that Arianespace’s Ariane 5 heavy-lifting
rockets are more than capable of handling
the delivery of up to four Galileo satellites at
the same time. Right now, such a rocket can
only take three satellites to orbit, but with $50
million worth of modifi cations, it could easily
accommodate four. Oosterlinck explained he
favoured a plan where the Ariane 5 would
be kept in reserve, in case the Soyuz became
unavailable. But critics argue that using
Russian rockets would only go to show that
Europe is not as autonomous as it would like
to think, and would fail to prove the idea that
started the project. http://news.softpedia.com
EU satnav project ill-conceived
The EU’s much delayed project Galileo has
been ill-prepared and badly managed, the
European Court of Auditors charged.“The
programme lacked a strong strategic sponsor
and supervisor: the (European) Commission
did not proactively direct the programme,
leaving it without a helmsman,” the auditors’
court opined after carrying out an audit
of the ill-starred project. As well as the
commission -- the EU’s executive arm --
the 27 member states came into criticism
for promoting their own industries first and
foremost. “Owing to their different programme
expectations, member states intervened in
the interest of their national industries and
held up decisions. The compromises made
led to implementation problems, delays and,
in the end, to cost overruns,” the official
auditors declared. The audit examined
the factors in the failure of the concession
process and for delays and cost overruns of
technological development. It concluded that
the original public-private partnership plan
was “inadequately prepared and conceived”
not to mention “unrealistic”. AFP
