The first round of contracts for Europe’s global navigation system Galileo have been awarded, with the consortium led by Germany’ OHB System and Britain’s Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) winning the lucrative first manufacturing order for the…
The first round of contracts for Europe’s global navigation system Galileo have been awarded, with the consortium led by Germany’ OHB System and Britain’s Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) winning the lucrative first manufacturing order for the constellation. The system will achieve initial deployment in 2014.
The OHB consortium will build the first 14 Galileo satellites, out of a maximum of 32. The initial order is worth E566m. The first satellite will be provided in July 2012, to be followed by one every month and a half until the fourteenth is launched in March 2014.
The tenders for the remaining spacecraft will be put up for competition between OHB and EADS Astrium at a later date.
Thales Alenia Space won the E85m contract to provide system support services, while Arianespace was confirmed as the launcher for the entire constellation at a price of E397m for an initial manifest of five Soyuz launches, carrying two satellites at time from 2012.
Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President in charge of Transport, said: “With this and the upcoming awards for the remaining procurement packages, we are concluding a critical phase of the Galileo programme. We can now focus on the actual roll-out and demonstrate to European citizens that Europe’s own satellite navigation system is firmly underway.”
OHB will be the prime contractor on the manufacturing side and will build the satellite bus at its facilities in Bremen. OHB CEO Berry Smutny said: “The award of this contract to our team reflects the European faith in fair competition and shows that the EC and ESA consider us to be a highly trustworthy satellite supplier with leading-edge technology.”
“We wish to thank both institutions for the professional and fair bidding process and for the constructive dialogue. We will now be devoting all our resources to implementing our part of the programme to the customer’s complete satisfaction and creating new and sustainable employment.”
SSTL will build and integrate the navigation payloads, and will leverage its experience of constructing the first prototype Galileo satellite, GIOVE-A, which was launched in 2005.
