SSTL gets Galileo award

Galileo and GPS

The Galileo team here at SSTL have been presented with an award by the European Space Agency (ESA) that acknowledges the successful GIOVE A mission and its outstanding contribution to the success of the Galileo programme. The award was presented by Didier Faivre of ESA’s Galileo Directorate to Elizabeth Rooney of SSTL at an event held at the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, on 13th October 2008.

GIOVE-A award
SSTL was contracted into ESA’s Galileo programme in 2003, when it began building the first GIOVE test bed satellite as part of the Galileo In Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE) of Galileo. The satellite was rapidly built and launched before the end of 2005. Since then the company has been actively involved with the in-orbit testing of GIOVE-A and, more recently, GIOVE B, launched in April 2008.

Last month, SSTL together with its German partner OHB-System was downselected by ESA and the European Commission (EC) as one of two potential suppliers of satellites to the Galileo operational system to be deployed by 2013.

SSTL’s Commercial Director, John Paffett said:
The GIOVE programme clearly demonstrated the benefits of dual-source supply, SSTL's GIOVE-A was designed, built and tested in a rapid 28 month schedule which allowed Europe to claim the ITU frequency filing. Without GIOVE-A, ESA would have lost the rights to the entire Galileo system. Dual source supply is also important in ensuring that the operational Galileo system is available as soon as possible and at the lowest final cost to the taxpayer. The long term benefit of a competitive supply base for Galileo satellites should not be underestimated.


Paffett also believes that market forces will also give Galileo the required boost to develop satellite navigation equipment:

Galileo has a lot to offer the satellite navigation marketplace, whether it’s landing planes or simply providing reliable navigation in the mountains. The possibilities are endless but it won’t happen until the equipment manufacturers see a working constellation in space. The sooner this happens, the better.

This entry was posted by Robin Wolstenholme on Monday, October 20. 2008 at 14:53. and is filed under Galileo and GPS. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog. All new comments are subject to moderation before being displayed.
Defined tags for this entry: , ,
Related entries by tags:
Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at del.icio.us Digg SSTL gets Galileo award Mixx SSTL gets Galileo award Bloglines SSTL gets Galileo award Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at YahooMyWeb Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at Furl.net Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at reddit.com Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at NewsVine Bookmark SSTL gets Galileo award at blogmarks Stumble It!

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

    No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

    No comments


Add Comment


Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA
 
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.