The European Parliament has voted to boost funding for the European Institute of Technology (EIT) and Galileo, the European satellite navigation system, at its first reading vote on the draft budget for 2008. The MEPs voted to reverse over €1.5 billion of cuts made by the Council to payments under the headings 1a (competitiveness, growth, employment) and 1b (cohesion).

EC issues Galileo restructuring plan
The European Commission has proposed changes in running and funding the Galileo and Egnos satellite navigation systems, but deferred proposals on procurement competition and private sector involvement. The proposed revamp was recently submitted to the European Parliament and the European Council, which in June agreed to abandon the public-private partnership arrangement that had been set up to manage and fund deployment of the 30-satellite system.
Lack of clear governance was pegged as a major shortcoming of the original managing structure. Under the new setup, the Parliament and Council are to be fully responsible for political and program oversight, the latter through a new European Global Navigation Satellite System Program Committee. The European Commission will act as owner or sponsor of the project, under the supervision of the GNSS Committee.
The European Space Agency will act as prime contractor, under contract to the EC, with responsibility for the In Orbit Validation (IOV) spacecraft, the 26 Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites and the related ground segment. The agency will report regularly to the Parliament and Council on program progress. The GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), which had been created to manage negotiations with the private sector under the original public-private partnership scheme, was given a new job. The GSA will be beefed up and made responsible for preparing market services, handle accrediation/certification, and serve as advisor to the Commission.
The EC determined that the cost of building and deploying the system would not exceed 3.4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) – in line with earlier estimates – provided that there are no further delays or major changes in procurement policy. www.aviationweek.com

Galileo to support global search and rescue
The detection of emergency beacons will be greatly improved by the introduction Galileo. It will carry transponders to relay distress signals to search and rescue organisations. In connection with this, representatives of the Galileo project attended the recent 21st annual Joint Committee Meeting of COSPAS-SARSAT, the international programme for satellite-aided search and rescue. The partners in Galileo are committed to developing the Galileo search and rescue component as an integral part of MEOSAR (Medium Earth Orbit Search And Rescue, the future worldwide search and rescue satellite system. Galileo joined the meeting in a formal capacity as a major contributor to the MEOSAR programme, following the signature of the ‘Declaration of Intent to Cooperate on the Development and Evaluation of MEOSAR’. It is a programme to equip satellites that operate in medium- Earth orbits with payloads that receive signals from distress beacons on Earth. These signals are then relayed to rescue organisations, giving them the location of the emergency.
www.gpsdaily.com

US, EU agree on GPSGalileo compatibility
The United States and the European Union (EU) have announced a formal agreement to make respective global navigation satellite systems (GNSS)-GPS and Galileocompatible with one another. The European Commission (EC) said a joint working group had overcome technical challenges to design interoperable civil signals. Experts have agreed that a multiplexed binary offset carrier (MBOC) waveform will be used on both systems instead of the binary offset carrier, or BOC (1,1) waveform, as stated in a 1984 agreement between the United States and the EU. The MBOC signal was proposed by a technical working group to examine further refi nements to the design.
www.satnews.com

Galileo would be financed entirely by EU budget
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the financing Galileo, saying all money must come from the European Union (EU) budget for the construction of the system. The parliament asked the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, to present a revised proposal for legislation on the financing of the Galileo program.
The parliament says it will oppose any solution which wouldcombine EU funding with additional inter-governmental funding. The parliament expressed concern at the possibility that the additional financing necessary to fill the gap following the failure of the public-private partnership could be agreed on an inter-governmental basis.
The parliament also believed that if the public sector assumes the complete financing of the project, this factor should be taken into account in a future revised concession contract, especially as regards the reimbursement mechanism for public financial contributions and the prices of services.
Transport ministers from all 27 member states of the EU agreed earlier this month to build Galileo by public funding. But they failed to agree on where the funds should come from. The European Commission had to recommend entire public funding for the construction phase of Galileo in May as infighting in the eight-company consortium, which was picked to both build and manage Galileo, has put the completion date in doubt. http://english.people.com.cn

European Union to sole-fund Galileo
Financing for Europe’s GNSS, Galileo, will come solely from the public sector, the European Commission declared, May 16, in Brussels. The public-private partnership (PPP) that had crippled the ambitious project was abandoned. EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said that the 27-nations bloc’s biggest-ever joint technological project could only reach orbit altitude if the public sector took full financial responsibility. He made the announcement as he presented three options for the bogged-down Galileo project: a complete EU takeover, partial public financing, or total elimination.
Barrot prefers to take over the project now, at an estimated public cost of about E2.4 billion in addition to the E1.5 billion already allocated in the 2007-2013 budget, and to issue a new tender to operate the system once it is built and in space by the end of 2012, according to recent forecasts. The European Space Agency would oversee construction and deployment of the satellites, though European aerospace companies would still supply technology, without assuming financial risk. EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen ruled out cancelling Galileo. “Galileo is from the European Commission standpoint an absolutely essential project,” he stated. “We don’t have an option of giving up on Galileo.” http://sidt.gpsworld.com

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme.

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme.

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme.

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme.