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| PNT MEDIA ITEMS                                                       |
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| [**www.pnt.gov**](http://www.pnt.gov/)                                |
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October 10, 2007

**Germany Questions Satellite Funding**

[[AP]{.underline}](http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071009/eu_galileo.html?.v=1),
October 10, 2007

LUXEMBOURG \-- The EU finance ministers reported no progress Tuesday in
salvaging Europe\'s Galileo satellite navigation project \-- a rival to
the U.S.-run Global Positioning System \-- with Germany questioning the
final price tag.

Germany opposes a European Commission proposal to use \$3.4 billion in
unspent EU agricultural and administrative funds after private money for
Galileo dried up when eight companies disagreed on how to share the
work. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told reporters Germany
wanted the money to come from the Paris-based, 17-nation European Space
Agency.

The move would benefit German companies more than if contracts for the
project were shared across the 27-nation EU. \"It is right (that) they
who pay the lion\'s share can expect\" the largest return in contract
work, he told reporters.

Britain and the Netherlands also oppose using the EU budget to bail out
the Galileo project but say the money should come from the EU\'s
research and development program.The EU has already spent \$1.4 billion
on Galileo.

The European Commission has proposed providing an additional \$3.4
billion to fill the shortfall created when the private sector fell away.
Steinbrueck questioned Galileo\'s price tag, telling reporters, \"As far
as the cost estimate is concerned, I share the skepticism that it really
is \$4.8 billion.

The Galileo program foresees the launching of 30 satellites to be fully
operational by 2013. A final decision will likely come from the EU
leaders at a mid-December Brussels summit. Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos,
the Portuguese finance minister and the meeting\'s chairman, said the EU
nations see Galileo \"as an excellent project,\" despite the funding
spat.

The European Commission calls Galileo \"a strategic project\" to end
Europe\'s reliance on the GPS signal which the United States can
disconnect at any moment. It has put Galileo\'s total cost between \$4.8
billion and \$5.1 billion. Of the 30 Galileo satellites, only one is in
orbit.

It was launched in December, 2005, but a second missed its autumn 2006
launch date after it short-circuited in final testing. The satellites
are to beam radio signals to receiving devices on the ground, helping
users pinpoint their locations.

Interoperable with the 24-satellite GPS, Galileo promises to more than
double existing GPS coverage, provide navigation for anybody from
motorists to pilots and improve coverage in northern Europe and in big
cities, where skyscrapers can block signals.

Its designers say Galileo would also be more exact than GPS, with
precision of up to 3.3 feet, compared with 16.4 feet with GPS
technology. In its push for public funding, the European Commission
points to a recent survey which showed that 80 percent of EU citizens
believe the bloc should use taxpayers\' money to complete the Galileo
project even though 40 percent of those questioned said they had not
heard of it.

**EU Still Deadlocked Over Funds For Galileo Satnav System**

[[AFP]{.underline}](http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071009/sc_afp/euspacesatelliteitgalileo_071009154143),
October 10, 2007

The European Union failed again Tuesday to break a deadlock over how to
fund the ambitious but troubled Galileo satellite network, meant to
rival the US Global Positioning System (GPS). \"It\'s too early to talk
about a consensus on financing,\" said Portuguese Finance Minister
Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos, whose country holds the EU\'s rotating
presidency, after a meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg.

EU transport ministers were unable to overcome the impasse a week ago.

Work on Galileo, supposed to be a showcase for Europe\'s technical
prowess, has stalled as cost over-runs pile up, private contractors
bicker and member nations push their own industrial interests. The
European Commission published proposals last month to raise an extra 2.4
billion euros (3.4 billion dollars) for the 30-satellite project mainly
with unspent money intended for farm subsidies from the EU\'s joint
budget.

However, Germany is keen that funding should come from states whose
companies are involved in the project. EU ministers will have another
chance to narrow their difference in late November and if that does not
settle the matter, it will be dealt with at an EU summit of heads of
state and government in mid-December

**Europeans Disagree On Funding A Rival GPS System**

[[USA
Today]{.underline}](http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/europeans-disag.html),
October 10, 2007

European countries want their own satellite navigation system to rival
the U.S. Global Positioning System, but European Union finance ministers
meeting Tuesday in Luxembourg couldn\'t agree on how to pay for the
\$3.4 billion project.

\"There is consensus this is an excellent initiative,\" Portuguese
Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos says of the Galileo
project, \"but it is too soon to talk in terms of a consensus on the
necessary financial solution.\"

The United States developed GPS and provides it free to the world. The
Europeans say their Galileo system is a \"strategic project\" because it
would end their reliance on a system the United States could disconnect
in a national emergency. The Galileo program foresees 30 satellites
operational by 2013. Only one is in orbit so far. GPS is the basis for
such things as digital maps and navigational devices. Here\'s a U.S.
government explanation of how it works and here\'s a simpler version
from howstuffworks.com. Europe\'s only Galileo global navigation
satellite was launched in 2005 from Kazakhstan.

**Galileo: Is The Symbol Stumbling?**

By Taylor Dinerman

[[The Space
Review]{.underline}](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/974/1),
October 10, 2007

The Galileo satellite navigation system was always part of the
long-running debate over the future of "Europe": not the actual
geographic location, but the idea that somehow the European Union,
formerly known as the European Community and before that the Common
Market, can evolve into a new kind of post-national political entity.

Writing in the October 5th edition of Le Monde, Frederic Lemaitre
rejected the call made last May by the British magazine The Economist to
scrap the whole project. Lemaitre admits that if the project was purely
commercial, it would make sense to do so: "No one can say for sure if
European consumers would pay to have at their disposal a system of
'radionavigation' which the Americans make available for free via their
GPS." The case for Galileo, according to this editorial, is purely
military. This was not what the EU and ESA were telling the world when
work on the European system began in 2002. Back then its civil nature
was juxtaposed with the Pentagon's GPS. Galileo was supposed to be a
purely peaceful system that would provide "safety of life" services with
a guarantee that it would never be shut off for any reason.

The case for Galileo, according to one French editorial, is purely
military.

If, however, as now seems obvious, it is to be a military system, then
it will have to conform to military requirements, and one of these is
that it can be turned off or degraded if it is found that the enemy is
making use of the signal. Officially most European military
organizations prefer to use the US system, which is fits in with NATO
operational doctrine and over which they have some influence via the
complex consultation structure of the Western alliance.

France has always looked upon Galileo as a military tool. They see it as
one of the cornerstones of Europe's future military space force.
Lemaitre claims that, in private, Germany agrees with France. Britain
stands in the way, but if the British were to pull out then they would
lose their industrial role in the setup and would still be forced to pay
for a share of the work through their mandatory payments to ESA and to
the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) fund, which has now been proposed
to be tapped to pay for the system.

This last idea deserves to be examined a little more closely. The CAP
has a surplus due to higher world grain prices. European farmers, for
now at least, no longer need the generous subsidies that they had
previously received. So now the surplus is available for Galileo. It
cannot be used to help farmers in places like Poland or Romania, who
need to upgrade their agricultural methods to make them more
environmentally friendly---perhaps by introducing precision agricultural
methods using GPS. (Oops, can't use that!) Nor can the money be refunded
to Europe's taxpayers; bad precedent. So naturally it has to go into
building military satellites.

Why should anyone be surprised? This was always a dreamlike project. The
goal, according to Lemaitre, was to put an end to "American hegemony" to
engage in the "conquest of space" and to enhance the "grandeur de
l'Europe." The Economist referred to it as a "political creation founded
on national vanities." A cursory reading of the French press would
indicate that The Economist was spot on.

Galileo is often justified by saying that if the Russians and the
Chinese have independent satellite navigation systems, why shouldn't we?
Well, the Russian system has been compared to the old Soviet-era Lada
automobile, clunky and unreliable, but sometimes works better in the
Arctic than Western models.

The Chinese system is barely in existence, and it will probably be more
than a decade before it has anything like the capabilities that GPS has
now. Other nations, like India and Japan, which are just as jealous of
their sovereignty as France is, have chosen to build augmented systems
that use the GPS architecture as a base and add space and ground
elements which match their own special local requirements.

In the September issue of GPS World, General James Armor, who just
stepped down as head of the US National Security Space Office, proposed
to "go a step further: I'd offer to let them build and operate GPS
satellites for us if they would not build Galileo. They could add some
of their own signals on the ones they build and launch too, if they
wanted.

They could run a backup ground station in Europe, and we'd run the whole
thing as a joint constellation, perhaps through NATO. The US would still
have enough autonomously owned satellites to guarantee our national
security needs." Also: "I think it would get us to a constellation
that's more than 40 or 50 satellites. There are a lot of benefits from
doing that."

The idea may seem a bit shocking, but before the European's 2002
decision to build Galileo this was the direction that the GPS system was
going, from a purely military system to a joint civil military system
to, eventually, an international one. General Armor's suggestion would
merely restart a process that was already underway in 2002.

It seems to come down to the fact that the European system is an
expensive---in more ways than one---symbol of Europe as a global power.

Finally, Lemaitre tries to claim that Galileo is not an anti-American
program, and as evidence he cites the 2004 agreement on the frequency
overlay issue, which was a humiliating climbdown for President Chirac.
Few, if any, other Europeans wanted to follow France and turn the system
into a major instrument of electronic warfare aimed at the US. He also
says that some unnamed Americans see Galileo as a backup system in case
GPS went down.

The source for this probably is ignorant of the way the GPS system is
structured: only an all-out hostile attack on the ground stations and on
the satellites would significantly harm the US constellation. An enemy
capable of that would be capable and motivated to hit Galileo as well.

It seems to come down to the fact that the European system is an
expensive---in more ways than one---symbol of Europe as a global power.
Scrapping the project and joining GPS might be humiliating for some
former European leaders. The question, though, is why should today's
European governments pay for the delusions entertained by their
predecessors?

**Nationalism Vs. Technology**

By Patrick Marshall

[[GCN.com]{.underline}](http://www.gcn.com/print/26_26/45151-1.html),
October 10, 2007

There's nothing wrong with a little nationalism to drive technology.
After all, it got the first Ferris wheel built. And it spurred the
United States to the moon. The only snag is when the nation isn't big
enough to do the job by itself. Then nationalism can get in the way of
cooperation and bollix everything up. That may be what's happening with
the European Community's Galileo satellite project.

Only last July, the EU and United States agreed to use the same radio
frequency on the 24 U.S. Global Positioning System Navstar satellites
and the planned network of 30 GPS satellites in the European Galileo
system, scheduled to be deployed by 2010.

The European GPS system is reputed to be more accurate than the older
U.S. technology and is capable of locating objects within 3.3 feet,
compared with 16.4 feet for the existing GPS standard.

Even better, if both networks of GPS satellites were able to work
together --- as the European/U.S. agreement was intended to enable ---
the coverage of the combined GPS system would more than double. That
would allow GPS functionality in remote areas, the shadows of buildings
and other locations where service is currently spotty.

Now, however, the Galileo project --- which was sold to Europeans as a
means of avoiding dependency on the U.S. system --- is suffering the
slings and arrows of nationalistic competitiveness.

Companies from France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy have bogged
down the project in a dispute over development of the system. With
private funds from those countries now in doubt --- and private
investment was expected to cover two-thirds of the cost of the project
--- the EU must now decide whether and how to expand its financial
commitment to keep the project alive.

The cost of a bailout of the Galileo project is estimated at a little
more than \$3 billion. EU ministers are expected to debate the matter in
October.

Agreement on Kazakhstan's involvement in GLONASS pending

9 October 2007

[Russia & CIS Military Newswire](javascript:void(0))

ASTANA\-- Kazakhstan and Russia may soon sign an agreement on the
involvement of Kazakhstan in developing the **GLONASS** global
satellite-based navigation system, head of the Russian Federal Space
Agency (Roscosmos) Anatoly Perminov has said.

\"The next takeoff of a Proton launch vehicle with **Glonass**
satellites is slated for October 25 which we reported to the prime
minister of Kazakhstan. The presidents of our two countries have
approved and signed the **GLONASS** program.

By way of implementing it an agreement on Kazakhstan\'s involvement in
**GLONASS** is being drafted and work on it has been virtually
completed,\" he told a news conference in Astana on Tuesday. \"This is
our common task,\" Perminov added.

Russian company plans to double production of satellites in 2007

9 October 2007

[Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire](javascript:void(0))

MOSCOW\-- Sales of satellites by the Zheleznogorsk based Research and
Production Association, majoring in spacecraft production, may reach
11.5 billion rubles in 2007, the company\'s Designer General and
Director General Nikolai Testoedov told Interfax-AVN. The rapid increase
in volumes (from 4.3 billion rubles last year) is explained by the
large-scale effort to reinforce the group of **GLONASS** satellites in
orbit, he said, noting that the company is developing an upgraded
**GLONASS**-M satellite for the purpose. The production rates will not
decrease after the **GLONASS** plan is fulfilled, because the defense
order is gaining momentum, too, he said. In addition to **GLONASS**,
other important company products are the Express-33 and Express-44
communication satellites.

\"We are also involved in a number of commercial satellite projects,
which makes me sure that in the coming three or four years we will
witness growing production, rather than decay,\" he said, noting that
the company plans to launch 11 satellites this year, and another 12 in
2008. The production and potential of the enterprise allow it to produce
more spacecraft. For instance, in the Soviet age the association built
28 satellites per year.