Galileo is intended as an EU version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but with significant improvements.
Its more advanced technology should give users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with an error of one metre compared with the current GPS error of several metres.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8442090.stmA real threat to the United States! Wish Obama read this!What should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8bn euros will now probably cost them in excess of
5bn euros.
The Galileo service is now expected to begin offering some service as of
"early 2014". However the date for full, reliable global coverage - which would require a minimum of 24 operating spacecraft - has yet to be confirmed.
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intercontinental nuclear missile warhead forced to rely on its own inertial navigation and star sights is noticeably less accurate than one which can call on a modern sat-nav service. Such a warhead can still hit close enough to its target coordinates to eliminate a city, but not a hardened target like an underground bunker or missile silo. This was the primary reason for the construction of GPS.
Blighty, procuring its missiles from America rather than making its own like France, has so far been happy enough to rely on GPS-military should it want to make a precise counter-force ICBM strike rather than simply unleashing armageddon on an enemy nation. France has chafed rather more at not having a satnav option free of US involvement. However British missiles too could easily be set up to use Galileo "public regulated" instead of, or together with, GPS.
Russia for its part is building up its GLONASS constellation, once a rival to GPS but fallen into disrepair in the post-Soviet era. China has stated ambitions towards a satnav service, toohttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/07/galileo_contracts/
