Every year Europe addresses specific subjects to encourage debate and dialogue within and between countries. Designating 2019 as the European Year of Galileo would represent an opportunity to inform European citizens about the EU Global Satellite Navigation System and its concrete impact on their daily lives.
Galileo is the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that is being created by the European Union through the European GNSS Agency (GSA), headquartered in Prague, with two ground operations centres, Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich and Fucino in Italy. The €10 billion project takes the name of the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European nations do not have to rely on the Russian, Chinese or U.S. GPS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services will be free and open to everyone. The higher-precision capabilities will be available for paying commercial users. Galileo is intended to provide horizontal and vertical position measurements within 1-metre precision, and better positioning services at higher latitudes than other positioning systems. Galileo is also to provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function.
