HAM LEAD GROUP TO BUILD EUROPEAN GPS SATELLITE SYSTEM
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Surrey Satellite Technology in the United Kingdom which is headed up by Martin Sweeting, 
G3YJO, has been awarded a contract to build 14 spacecraft in cooperation with O-H-B in 
Germany. This, for the Galileo Satellite Navigation project.

The contract was announced by the European Commission in Brussels. The Galileo project 
is intended as an the European Union's version of the US Global Positioning System but 
also implementing a number of significant improvements. This will mean that it should g
ive users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with 
an error of one meter as compared with the current GPS error level of several meters.

Plans are to have the satellites coming off the the production line in the second half 
of 2012. Arianespace will use Russian-built Soyuz rockets to launch these global 
positioning spacecraft in batches of two. System planners say that by early 2014 there 
could be up to 16 spacecraft in the Galileo network. That they say is enough to make a 
significant difference to users with Galileo and GPS-enabled receivers. 
(AR Newsline)