THE GALILEO SATELLITE radio navigation system is a new and monumental initiative of the European Community institutions and the European space agency. Europe has finally decided that it cannot afford not to become involved in what will be one of the main sectors of industry in the 21st century. The lack of their own satellite system would mean that Europe will today become dependent on systems and technologies developed outside of itself for applications vital to running the society tomorrow like the GPS navigation system developed by the United States.
The Galileo satellite radio navigation programme depends on cutting-edge technology and enables users equipped with a receiver to receive signals from several satellites, and thus determine his exact position in time and space at any given moment. Galileo is based on a constellation of 30 satellites (compared to the 24 for GPS) placed in a medium earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 24 000 km continuously covering the entire surface of the earth. The programme's definition phase has already been completed. The first two satellites were launched in December of 2005. It is estimated that after implementation of the entire system (estimated to be 2010) over $3.2 billion will have been invested.
The Galileo system, when compared to GPS, will be superior in certain areas. Galileo will be a more reliable system as it will have a signal integrity message informing the user of any errors. The system is expected to be more accurate based on the constellation structure (as the GPS has only 24 satellites in contrast to Galileo's 30) and ground-based support planning.
