European Satellite Navigation Industries, formerly called Galileo Industries until legal action prompted a name change, was a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

of the companies

Alcatel Alenia Space Thales Alenia Space () is a joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%). The company is headquartered in Cannes, France. It provides space-based systems, including ...

and

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...

(France),

Finmeccanica Leonardo S.p.A., formerly Leonardo-Finmeccanica and originally Finmeccanica, is an Italian multinational company specialising in aerospace, defence and security. Headquartered in Rome, the company has 180 sites worldwide. It is the 12th largest ...

(Italy),

EADS Astrium Astrium was a European aerospace company and subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), headquartered in Paris. It designed, developed and manufactured civil and military space systems and provided related services ...

(UK and Germany) and Galileo Sistemas y Servicios (a consortium of seven Spanish companies). The company was the primary construction company for the

Galileo positioning system Galileo is a satellite navigation, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA) and operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). It is headquartered ...

, tasked with developing and building the satellites and components for the

ground segment A ground segment consists of all the ground-based elements of a spaceflight, space system used by operators and support personnel, as opposed to the Satellite space segment, space segment and user segment. The ground segment enables management of ...

infrastructure of this satellite navigation system. The partner firms committed to not construct competing products for Galileo. However, some competition came from

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a company involved in the manufacture and operation of small satellites. A spin-off company of the University of Surrey, it is presently wholly owned by Airbus Defence and Space. The company began o ...

, which successfully built and launched the first

GIOVE-A ; ), or Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, is the name for two satellites built for the European Space Agency (ESA) to test technology in orbit for the Galileo positioning system. The name was chosen as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, who discov ...

testbed satellite, and which was then awarded a contract for a followon GIOVE-A2 satellite while the joint venture's GIOVE-B satellite remained on the ground awaiting launch. Since that time, the GIOVE-B satellite successfully launched, although after the Galileo project had been abandoned by European Satellite Navigation Industries and taken up by the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. The company was headquartered at

Ottobrunn Ottobrunn () is a suburban municipality southeast of Munich, Bavaria, Germany, founded in 1955. Ottobrunn consists of mainly semi-detached and detached houses, as well as extensive garden areas. Ottobrunn is also the German Headquarters of Airbus ...

near Munich, with an office in Rome. The company employed around two hundred people, many working directly for their parent corporations.

Update

This private sector group of eight companies abandoned Galileo in 2007. Subsequently, EU has taken over the construction of Galileo positioning system.Galileo navigation satellite provider to be dismantled
Rob Coppinger, Flight International, 30 November 2007. On 21 December 2007

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European ...

terminated the Galileo contract with the European Satellite Navigation Industries.

References

External links

GIOVE Mission Processing Centre website
Aerospace companies of Europe Spacecraft manufacturers Galileo (satellite navigation) Aerospace engineering organizations Companies established in 2000

Update

Further reading

References

External links