The EU finally agreed last Friday on a financial program for Galileo, the European Satellite Navigation System. 1.6 billion EUR leftovers from previous agricultural funds (was 56.3 billion EUR in 2007 total), plus another 800 million EUR from research funds (approx 3.8 billion EUR in 2008 total) will be allocated to build Galileo (cf. EU budget). Approximately 1 billion EUR has been already spent on the project. According to the new time frame, we should see 30 satellites up in the orbit by 2013.
However, noteworthy is the new tendering procedure: it’s split up into 6 different segments. One bidding company can only be accepted as lead in max. 2 segments. Then, each segment volume must be be reassigned to subcontractors by at least 40%. This procedure should avoid that only large companies are favored and that small and medium-sized enterprises benefit from the 2.4 Galileo billions too.
Galileo seems now back on track again. Let’s see how long it’ll last this time… [via geobranchen]
0 Responses to “New Galileo financing and tendering”