01 July 2008
Galileo enters a new era with the announcement today that procurement will begin for the first constellation of European navigation satellites.
A competitive tender – to cover the costs of deploying, by 2013, a cluster of satellites capable of delivering a European answer to the US’ GPS and Russian GLONASS navigation systems – has been issued today for Galileo by the European Commission and European Space Agency (ESA).
The procurement tender includes infrastructure and management items and will be carried out by ESA in its role as delegated procurement agent, working closely with the European Commission, as contracting authority.
“With this procurement, the Galileo programme enters a new era,” says Antonio Tajani, the Commissioner designate for transport. It paves the way for completing a “state-of-the-art satellite navigation system which should help address many of today’s challenges”, he suggests, such as reducing energy consumption in the transport sector.
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) mean users can pinpoint the locations of objects, people or goods any time and anywhere. GNSS stands to improve the efficiency of transport and logistics, telecommunications, land surveying, agriculture, fisheries, environmental protection, scientific research, tourism and leisure, and more.
| Published in the Official Journal of the EC (OJ S125 of 1 July 2008), the procurement Contract Notice contains six work packages – system support; ground mission segment; ground control segment; space segment (satellites); launch services; and operations – to go towards building and implementing, by 2013, a constellation of satellites delivering a reliable, independent global satellite navigation system. |
Industry Information Day planned
In order to provide details and answer questions related to the work packages and present further information on the procurement rules and procedures, a 'Galileo Procurement Day' will take place in Brussels on 17 July 2008. For more information and to register, please go to: galileo.teamwork.fr
Big decisions
A European Parliament and Council decision last year freed up €3.4 billion for Galileo and EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) for the period 2007-2013, and provided guidance on how these programmes would be governed.
With that, the current tender could be issued following a so-called ‘Competitive Dialogue’ procedure allowed for under EU procurement rules. A dedicated website is foreseen by ESA to handle requests to take part in the tender. Details of the process for registering and criteria for participating will be found in a Tender Information Package available on-line.
The data package can be found at: estext231.estec.esa.int/Galileo-FOC
and the invitation at: emits.esa.int
For more information
