Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Galileo Cost Rises 1.9bn Euros

Europe will have to outlay a serve 1.9bn euros (1.6bn) to total its Galileo satellite-navigation system.

The European Commission says the allowance will be indispensable over 2014 to elevate the number of booster in circuit to 30.

The EC expelled its evaluation a day after a tip senior manager from a Galileo contractor was discharged for allegedly mission the plan a "stupid idea".

EC Vice-President Antonio Tajani mentioned the 3.4bn euros already committed to Galileo was allowance good spent.

"We do intend to pierce forward because you think in this project," he told reporters in Brussels. "It is vital to attain 30 satellites; I think it would be a inapplicable designation not to go forward and launch the other satellites."

Contracts have already been issued to erect and launch 18 booster that should give Galileo an primary working ability from 2014 onwards. To be able to offer all the services envisaged is to network will need 12 more satellites, however.

Galileo will work to one side the American Global Positioning System (GPS).

It is approaching to upgrade significantly the accessibility and correctness of timing and navigation signals delivered from space.

Users should obtain quicker, more arguable fixes and be able to fix up their positions to inside of one metre compared with the stream GPS-only blunder of a few metres.

Galileo should have been functional by right away but the plan has run in to innumerable technical, blurb and diplomatic obstacles, inclusive early objections from the US, who thought a opponent network to GPS might be used to assault its armed forces.

And the venture came really shut to being deserted in 2007 when the public-private partnership put in place to erect and run the plan collapsed.

To keep Galileo alive, EU member-states had to consent to account the whole plan from the open purse. What should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8bn euros is right away set to cost them in surplus of 5bn euros.

The ultimate evaluation of the additional expenses follows a examination of the plan by the EC's technical partner, the European Space Agency.

It shows that an estimated 1.9bn euros will be vital in the next multiyear EU bill period, 2014-2020.

It moreover assesses the annual running expenses to be about 800m euros for both Galileo and its forerunner network well known as Egnos.

On Monday, the arch senior manager of one of Germany's heading space companies mislaid his job since explanation he was reported to have done in a conversation with US diplomats in 2009.

OHB-System's Berry Smutny was quoted in a diplomatic line unprotected by Wikileaks as mission Galileo a "stupid thought that essentially serves French interests", and a waste products of taxpayers' money.

Although Mr Smutny denied the cable's contents, OHB's house motionless to eliminate him from his post to head off any serve damage to the company's repute and the Galileo project.

OHB-System is segment of the German-UK consortium that is constructing 14 of the first 18 Galileo spacecraft.

Asked about the affair, Mr Tajani mentioned he was contented that OHB-System was "committed wholeheartedly" to the project.

"I met [Berry Smutny]; he came to me in Brussels before the Wikileaks affair," explained the Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship. "He was really sufficient entangled in this area. After this affair, he sent in a e-mail that mentioned he believed in Galileo. Wikileaks isn't the Gospel."

The EC's one after another encouragement is to plan notwithstanding all its problems down the years is formed on the belief that outrageous earnings to the European manage to buy will build-up from the investment.

Already, GPS is mentioned to have spawned universal markets that are value a few tens of billions of euros annually.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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