During a recent convention held in Paris in November on the European satellite navigation programme 150 representatives of 80 companies and institutions gathered to consider the future development and strategic value of the Galileo programme.
Galileo is a proposal to provide an extremely precise and reliable service for the localisation of land, sea and air vehicles.
Indeed, the system's high quality service will be based on guaranteed and certified data and will be complementary to, and inter-operative with, the American GPS service.
Galileo will offer innovative applications for transport safety and provide the opportunity to create a new market sector involving all the European companies that develop space infrastructures, including the ground segment.
The Forum discussed the way to make such an ambitious programme reality: the system architecture must be implemented by 2001 following the directives to be issued by the end of December by the organisations involved, i.e., the Council of the Transport Ministry of the EU and the ESA Council.
The addresses given during the conference highlighted the following:
The Galileo project is of great collective interest to Europe as it assures the "Old Continent" independence and sovereignty thanks to the use of advanced technologies.
Galileo is expected to give considerable industrial returns in manufacturing and services.
Galileo will allow European industry to make further improvements in competitivity and presence on the commercial market.
Galileo Industries was set up in May 2000 and is a joint venture between Astrium, Alcatel and Alenia Spazio. Since its inception it has been managing the majority of the industrial activities.
Specifically, Alenia Spazio is responsible for the system definition, co-ordinating more than 70 companies.
