Contracts awarded for EU GPS

[Eman_3]

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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8442090.stm

The US has their GPS, the Russians GLONASS, and now the EU is coming out with their own system. The US and Russian systems are primarily to support the military, and thus they are controlled by the brass. But the EU system appears more commercial in origin. My interpretation is the EU system will replace the US GPS for commercial applications, and in a decade we will be using the EU GPS system in our non-military navigation and position fixing.