Second Galileo Validation Contract

The European Space Agency (France) and Galileo Industries have signed a
€ 150m contract as a first six-month stage towards signing an approximately € 950m contract covering the overall In-Orbit Validation phase. In-orbit validation involves the delivery of the first four satellites in the Galileo constellation of 30, along with a number of ground stations. This new contract following the 2003 contract for two test satellites, the Galileo project is truly taking shape. The work notably concerns the management of the programme and the choice of engineering systems and technical support required for maintaining the overall credibility of the scheduling, as well as for ensuring system coherence. The programme will then enter its deployment phase, which will cover the entire network of ground infrastructure. With the launch of the remaining 26 satellites the constellation will be completed. By end-2005 the launch is expected of the first test-satellite, onboard a Soyuz launcher. To ensure the success of this phase European industries will build two satellites in parallel.