Galileo update

EU preparing for secondgeneration Galileo

The European Commission has published a contract notice for procurement of Galileo transition satellites. The contracting authority, the Directorate- General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), wishes to procure new Galileo transition satellites with evolved specifications to ensure the continuity of the Galileo constellation in 2025-2026 and initiate the transition from the 1st generation to the 2nd generation of Galileo satellites. The contract notice indicates that four satellites will be ordered as baseline, with options for additional satellites. www.aircosmosinternational.com

Orolia secures 26m Galileo contracts

Orolia has announced that its atomic clock solutions have been selected for the Galileo. This latest initiative builds on Orolia’s long-standing role in providing the precise timing technology for satellite programs.

Under these contracts, Orolia will supply its Spectratime Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard and its Passive Hydrogen Masers physics package for an additional 12 Galileo satellites. In addition to serving as Europe’s independent PNT source, Galileo can also serve as a secondary signal source for systems such as GPS, GLONASS or BeiDou in the event of service disruption. Galileo delivers the highest accuracy of any GNSS system in operation today. The quadruple clock redundancy designed into each satellite ensures that even if a failure occurs, overall system performance will not be compromised. www.orolia.com

Galileo Masters seeking partners for future GNSS innovations

Since going live in 2016, users around the world are being guided using the positioning, navigation and timing information provided by Galileo’s satellite constellation.

The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) is an opportunity to transform your idea into a commercial solution. On a mission to spur the development of market-driven applications, the annual competition awards the best services, products and business ideas using satellite navigation – and Galileo in particular – in everyday life. Since its launch in 2004, over 11,500 people from 90 countries have participated in the ESNC, each of whom have been competing for a piece of the EUR 1 million prize pool. www.esnc.eu

UK wants £1bn back from EU if it is excluded from Galileo

David Davis’s Brexit department is also warning the scheme could cost the EU an extra €1bn (£876m) without the UK’s continued involvement The row could harm wider post-Brexit security co-operation, the department says in a new paper.

But Brussels has cited legal issues about sharing sensitive information with a nonmember state for its decision to shut British firms out of the project. Brussels has also said it will restrict access to encrypted signals from Galileo.

In its position paper, the UK government repeats its threat to build its own satellite navigation system – which has been estimated would cost up to £5bn – as a rival to Galileo. www.bbc.com