FLUG REVUE December 2003: Galileo gets Chinese support

GALILEO HEADS FOR CHINA

By Volker K. Thomalla

At the summit meeting of the European Union with China to be held at the beginning of November in Beijing, representatives of the two sides are planning to sign an agreement that will allow the Chinese to enjoy the benefits of the future European satellite navigation system, Galileo. Overnight the system is changing from a purely European project into one of global significance. This is likely to be confirmed before long when Japan and Israel, which also have their eye on Galileo, climb on board as well. This development will not be welcome to the American government, which up to now has possessed a world-wide monopoly in its Department of Defense's Global Positioning system (GPS).

One has the impression that so far the Americans have not taken Galileo very seriously. Washington was relying unduly on the expectation that, as in other joint programmes, the Europeans would fight amongst themselves and fail to get their act together, especially as Galileo is funded 50% by each of the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA), which does not make the organisational structure of the programme any simpler. Nor did Galileo prove immune from the traditional disputes – in this case the main item of contention was a dispute between Germany and Italy over where the operating company would be based – but the programme is nevertheless up and running.

It will not be long before we see the first hardware. The approx. Euro 3.2 billion system is expected to enter service in 2008. And the agreement with China will give it further impetus.

The tone of utterances from the other side of the Atlantic is changing accordingly. If before their primary argument was that the Europeans did not need their own satellite navigation system and were only wasting their money as they could use GPS for free, they are now asking for the US Department of Defense to have the right to a say in the matter, as there could be frequency overlaps between GPS and Galileo – an argument that the programme participants have dismissed. The Pentagon is also afraid that Galileo could be used by so-called rogue states, yet it is itself unable to guarantee that those states are not already using GPS for their evil purposes.

Quite apart from this, American companies are also involved in Galileo. About 20 percent of the value of every Galileo satellite will be sourced by suppliers in the USA. Co-operating with the Europeans would be more profitable to both sides than the course that the USA is currently pursuing in the matter of Galileo.

With its 30 satellites in space, the system will enable more accurate navigation on the earth than is possible with the present GPS, now over 20 years old. Applications which allow navigation to the nearest centimetre become possible as a result and will open up a huge market for new equipment. Analysts estimate the sales potential at over €15 billion. As well as traditional navigation for transport purposes, Galileo will open up new markets such as navigation by mobile phone, crime prevention and new services. Galileo represents the more modern system and is thus putting pressure on the USA to bring forward development of the GPS successor system planned for the middle of the next decade.

Despite the political flak, the EU and ESA are continuing undeterred along their path of EU-China co-operation in the matter of satellite navigation: on 19 September, together with the Chinese Minister for Science and Technology, ESA officially opened a training, co-operation and information centre for satellite navigation at the University of Beijing.

From page 4 of FLUG REVUE 12/2003

Last updated 10 November 2003

FLUG REVUE, Ubierstr. 83, 53173 Bonn, Germany