Date published: 2007/05/08
The BBC says:
Europe's proposed satellite-navigation system, Galileo, will need more public funds if it is to be built.
Hope is receding that a private consortium asked to run the system can end its infighting and meet a 10 May deadline to move the project forward.
This is likely to mean European taxpayers stepping in to cover costs.
German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, speaking on behalf of the EU, said: "Galileo is going through a deep and grave crisis."
He added: "We're in a dead end street. The cardinal problem is that the companies still have not been able to agree on the way forward. We need to find an alternative solution."
The consortium comprises leading aerospace and telecom concerns: EADS, Thales, Inmarsat, Alcatel-Lucent, Finmeccanica, AENA, Hispasat, and TeleOp.
The European Commission (EC) set the May deadline for them to come forward with a single company structure to run Galileo, a chief executive and common negotiating position.
But with little sign of the target being met to the Commission's satisfaction, the EC is now expected to present new proposals to overhaul the project on 16 May.
"Our view is that the current scenario to put Galileo into place cannot work," said Michele Cercone, spokesman for the EC's directorate general for transport.
Galileo's planned network of 30 satellites will beam radio signals to receiving devices on the ground, helping users pinpoint their locations.
The system's technologies are designed to bring greater accuracy and reliability to navigation and timing signals delivered from space.
The intention behind Galileo was that taxpayers in the EU would inject more than one billion euros (£0.7bn) into the early development of the project.
The deployment phase - the launch of the satellites and the construction of ground stations - was expected to cost at least two billion more, with two-thirds of the investment being borne by the private sector.
The latter was also expected to pick up all the running costs in the long term.
...
Originally, Galileo was to have started launching its 30 satellites by 2008. However, that date was postponed to 2011/12 due to previous disagreements between EU governments on how to pay for the system.
Unbelievable. You take one good idea and completely mess up the implementation by trying to run the project with a committee made up of lumbering giant corporations. The EU could have given it to some halfway competent ten-person company to build and had a better result by now.
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