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Questions Still Loom In GPS/Galileo Cooperation

By Staff Writer | July 23, 2004

      Although the United States and the European Union have reached agreement that the U.S.’s GPS and the EU’s forthcoming Galileo satellite navigations will work cooperatively together, questions still loom regarding how the EU’s financing of the project will impact Galileo’s operations.

      During a panel discussion hosted by Women In Aerospace yesterday in Washington, D.C., Michael Swiek, executive director of the U.S. GPS Industry Council, noted that the EU is “one step away” from allowing only Galileo to be used for satellite navigation application while in Europe and then taxing its use as a way to cover the financing of the project, because the EU, unlike the GPS system, will be built in part with private funds that will require a return on that investment. Ralph Braibanti, director of space and advanced technology with the U.S. State Department, said the United States would like to see Galileo “free and open.”