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BBC: Galileo, Europe’s much delayed and costly satellite-navigation project, takes a major step forward on Thursday.

The first contracts are being awarded to the companies that will start to build the operational network.

The European Commission will purchase spacecraft, rockets and system management in deals totalling more than half a billion euros.

Galileo is intended as an EU version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but with significant improvements.

Its more advanced technology should give users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with an error of one metre compared with the current GPS error of several metres.

European Commission vice-president with responsibility for transport, Antonio Tajani, is expected to announce the winners of the contracts in a media conference in Brussels at about midday.

One recipient is already known because it was the only bidder for the tendered work.

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Reuters: The European Union launched a free satellite navigation network on Thursday that could help pilots, drivers and blind people by fine-tuning the accuracy of the U.S. global positioning system (GPS) to around 2 meters.The EGNOS system will use three satellites and 34 ground stations to narrow the horizontal accuracy of GPS from around 7 meters previously and improve its vertical accuracy to help pilots during landings.

The “Safety-of-Life” service for aircraft navigation could be in place next year, the EU executive said in a statement.

Farmers could also benefit from improved precision for spraying fertilizers, and new applications could emerge on roads, such as automatic tolling and pay-per-use car insurance.

“It will make all personal navigation applications much more precise, giving birth to new possibilities like guiding aids for blind people,” the Commission said.

The system was pioneered by the Commission, the European Space Agency and aviation safety authority Eurocontrol.

It paves the way for the better known Galileo project, a European satellite system which will rival GPS and could be up and running in 2014.

The 4 billion euro ($5.8 billion) Galileo project, Europe’s biggest single space program, has been plagued by delays and squabbling over funding that ended only when the EU agreed to fund it from the public purse.

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NaviGadget: China just put a new navigation satellite in orbit. This the first one of ten scheduled to be put in space before the end of the year.

Called Compass-G2, the satellite is part of a plan to free China from American dependence when it comes to global positioning. China’s navigation satellites are part of the Beidou project which has been underway for a quite a while now.

Previous reports said China planed to complete its independent global satellite navigation system by launching about 30 more orbiters before 2015, with 10 navigation satellites into the space in 2009 and 2010.

The current Compass system only provides regional navigation service within China and neighboring regions.

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AINOnline: While GPS is currently leading the pack in terms of satnav system implementation, at a recent UN International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems conference it was clear that competing systems are getting closer and could overtake it during the next decade.

Presentations from Europe, Russia and China described active developments of worldwide satnav constellations, while India and Japan are moving ahead with regional networks.

Though their signals will be compatible with GPS, these aren’t simply clones, and Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s Glonass and China’s Compass will offer several capabilities and services not currently available from GPS.

With its first satellite launched in the late 1970s, GPS has certainly been a trailblazer and today supports more than 300 million land, sea and airborne users around the world.

Furthermore, the USAF spends some $1 billion per year to ensure consistently improving global performance, replacing older satellites with updated units that have progressively increased its accuracy and reliability.

However, one perceived major shortcoming of the system is that it employs too few satellites. GPS is a 24-satellite system, and while the Air Force diligently works to maintain that number, the military needs only 21, and that’s a concern for civil aviation interests. Although spare satellites are in nearby “parking” orbits, it takes time to move them to replace failed units.

A United Airlines analysis shows that losing just one satellite of the 24 would inhibit many current GPS procedures, including five-nautical-mile en route separation. Losing one in a 27-satellite constellation would have a much less serious impact, while a 30-satellite configuration would be unaffected even if two satellites failed. Galileo, forecast to be operational in 2013, will have 27 satellites, and Glonass and Compass will each have 30, by 2012 and 2016, respectively.

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The Independent: The European Commission kicked off plans this week for a rival to the United States’ global positioning system (GPS) with calls for suppliers for €3.4bn-worth of hi-tech space-technology deals.

The Galileo programme’s network of 30 satellites is designed to give Europe strategic independence from the US, steal a march on the nascent market for mobile location-based services and boost the region’s hi-tech and engineering sectors.

But squabbles in Brussels have already pushed the scheme years behind schedule and British MPs warned last year it could become an “orbiting RailTrack”. The five-year project is split into six parts, including hardware, complex ground-control and navigation systems and systems integration work. Key players that are likely to put themselves into the running include Thales Alenia Space, EADS Astrium and Logica, but the scheme could also attract non-European firms and Boeing has expressed some interest.

Notwithstanding predictions of disaster by the scheme’s opponents, Galileo is a superior technology. While the American system is accurate to 10 metres at best, and considerably less in built-up areas, Galileo can pinpoint down to a few centimetres. Richard Peckham, the business development director at EADS Astrium, said: “GPS started as a military system but a massive market has developed around it and US industry has reaped the benefits many times over.

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InsideGNSS: The European Satellite Navigation Competition (Galileo Masters), now in its fifth year, is seeking the best ideas for satellite navigation applications from companies, entrepreneurs, research institutes, universities, and individuals.

The 2008 contest welcomes your innovative entries beginning May 1, 2008 through July 31, 2008. You must submit your entry through the secure online database at www.galileo-masters.com

This year’s contest will culminate with an awards ceremony in the Munich Residenz, Munich, Germany on Tuesday, October 21, 2008.

The overall winner will be named the GALILEO Master. Last year’s top winner, Zaharia Dragos of Nice/ Sophia Antipolis, France, took home a cash prize of €10,000. He submitted an idea to increase security in financial transactions by augmenting encryption procedures using the precise time signal of the Galileo satellite navigation system.

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Wired: On Christmas Day, Russia successfully got the last three of its GPS rival satellites into orbit. The system, known as GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System), consists 24 satellites and will interoperate with the US GPS network.Despite setbacks in the 1990s when the USSR collapsed, the GLONASS system has still managed to beat out the red tape tangled Galileo, Europe’s attempt at a satellite positioning network.

GLONASS will come fully online in 2009, and will offer an instant fix of position once the satellites are located. This is an improvement on the Soviet’s previous navigation network, Tsikada, which required from one to two hours to calculate a position.

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BBC News: A majority of EU transport ministers have approved the multi-billion euro Galileo satellite navigation project.The decision was made without the backing of Spain, which had demanded that it host a ground station for the network of 30 orbiting satellites.

Ministers had until the end of year to reach an agreement. The system is supposed to be in operation by 2013.

Questions remain about its cost but supporters say it will create jobs and cut dependence on the US GPS service.

The Commission had said that if agreement was not reached by the end of the year, the project would essentially be dead.

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Reuters: Funding for the European Union’s multi-billion euro satellite navigation system was still up in the air on Tuesday as the bloc’s finance ministers put off until next month attempts to map out a financing plan.The executive European Commission proposed last month that public money be used to build Galileo, a rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS).

The Commission said unused agricultural funds budgeted for 2007 and 2008 could plug most of the 2.4 billion-euro hole left in the project.

On Tuesday, Germany, backed by Britain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland balked at reopening the bloc’s seven-year budget deal for a project that has yet to find any private sector backing, one EU diplomat said.

Instead, some of them prefer using cash already earmarked for boosting competitiveness and research.

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Hemscott: The launch of the second test satellite for the Galileo navigation project — envisioned to be a competitor to the NAVSTAR GPS positioning system — has been delayed to March 2008 from its originally-planned launch at the end of this year.

‘The launch that was planned for December is now envisioned to take place in March 2008,’ a spokesman for the rocket specialist company Arianespace told Financial Times Deutschland in an article to appear tomorrow.

He said the delay was caused by other set backs with the launch of a Russian Sojus rocket at a site in Baikonur, Russia.

There are eight private contractors involved in the Galileo navigation project — which include EADS, Alcatel-Lucent, Thales, Inmarsat and Finmeccanica SpA.

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BetaNews: The European Union and the United States have agreed on a common signal design for their respective satellite navigation systems, representatives said Monday.

The US’ GPS system has been operational for several years now, while the EU’s Galileo system is still in development.

By agreeing on a common signal design, it will pave the way for receivers to easily incorporate both navigation systems into a single design, resulting in better location-finding.

“We are pleased by the adoption of this key improvement to the common civil signal design,” U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Reno Harnish said. “The U.S.-EU collaboration that produced this innovation and led to its joint adoption reflects the strong working relationships that we have developed on GPS and Galileo.”

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BBC: Entrepreneurs are being urged to look to the future of satellite navigation. A competition, which aims to find novel ideas that exploit the pin-point accuracy of Europe’s soon-to-launch Galileo system, is calling for entries.

Previous winners include a system that monitors changes in the ground that occur before an earthquake strikes. The eventual winner of the UK Satellite Navigation Challenge will then compete in a European tournament for cash and support to kick-start the business.

“Everybody has been amazed at what clever entrepreneurs have been able to do [with GPS]; it does far more than what anyone could have dreamed of when they invented the system,” said Richard Peckham of EADS Astrium Navigation, and one of the Judges of the UK competition.

“I think the same will be true in the future when you have Galileo plus GPS.” He said the UK competition was primarily looking for something that had business potential. “You are also looking for novelty and whether people will be one day willing to pay for the capability.”

Last year’s competition, for example, was won by Genesys Consultancy, which suggested a product to help predict natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Unlike previous winners, GeoSynch, as the product is known, primarily uses the increased accuracy of the timing signals from the Galileo satellites rather than its positioning application.

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