The European Space Agency (ESA) said Aug. 25 that testing of the first Galileo satellites, which form part of what is called the Galileo System Test Bed (GSTB), is underway in Italy.

The payload of the GSTB-V2/B satellite, developed by Galileo Industries, is completing a first series of tests at Alenia Spazio facilities in Rome. The specially designed navigation payload has been subjected to a range of extreme temperatures in a vacuum chamber.

ESA said the results obtained during the testing in a simulated space environment “are very promising and constitute a major milestone in the validation of technology specifically developed for the Galileo system.”