Officials of the European Union, and of the European Space Agency (ESA) have planned the development of the region's first global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for a long time. Now, after securing the agreement from member states, and the necessary funds, the project is well underway, and another major milestone was achieved recently, when ESA and Arianespace representatives signed a new agreement. The document states that the space company will launch the first ten satellites that will make up the navigation network, dubbed Galileo, Space Fellowship reports.

The France-based Arianespace SA is the world's first commercial space transportation company, and also the manufacturer of the famous and extremely reliable Ariane 5 heavy-lift delivery vehicle. Such a rocket in 2009 launched the Herschel and Planck space telescopes, the former being the most massive in space, at the same time. At the time of this writing, Arianespace holds 50 percent of the world market for boosting satellites to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The company was founded in 1980, and has performed more than 240 successful space flights since 1984. This background makes it uniquely qualified to be the beneficiary of the ESA contract for Galileo, analysts say.

The agreement between ESA and Arianespace was signed today, January 27, in the Netherlands, at the European Space Research & Technology Center (ESTEC). The text of the agreement states that Arianespace, represented at the meeting by Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall, will launch ten FOC (Full Operational Capability) Galileo satellites. ESA was represented by its Director of the Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities, Rene Oosterlinck. The space agency is in charge of managing the navigation system project for the EU.

The satellites themselves will be constructed by OHB Technology, in Germany, and Surrey Satellite Technology, Ltd., in the United Kingdom. Arianespace will manage the launch process and associated operations. There will be five launches, using Russian-built Soyuz missiles, rather than Ariane 5 vehicles, and all of them will take place at the Kourou Space Center, in French Guyana, South America. The satellites will be blasted to a 23,000-kilometer-high circular orbit above the surface of the planet in pairs, the same agreement stipulates.