EU Orders Next-generation Galileo Satellites
The European Commission has handed down industrial contracts worth a total of €1.47bn (£1.31bn; $1.97bn) to build the next generation of Galileo satellites.
The work is going to the continent's two dominant space manufacturers - Airbus and Thales Alenia Space. They will make six spacecraft each for the global navigation satellite system, with the first of them likely to go into orbit in 2024. Galileo is the EU's version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS).
Now enabled in billions of smartphones worldwide, both services allow users to identify their location on the planet down to an error of a metre or so. The precise timing transmissions from orbit are also used in numerous infrastructure applications, including the synchronisation of telecommunications and energy networks.
Galileo currently has 24 operational spacecraft in orbit, with a further 12 first-generation models at various stages of assembly and still awaiting launch. The latest order is designed to incorporate newer technologies that will improve the robustness and accuracy of the signals beamed down to Earth.
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