Europe’s Galileo project all set to threaten the monopoly of US’s GPS System

Europe’s Galileo project all set to threaten the monopoly of US’s GPS System

The European Union has started their assault on the monopoly of the United States based Global Positioning System. They have launched the first Galileo satellite from the planned batch of 30 such proposed Galileo satellites into the space to rival the technology offered by the US. In fact, this is one of the toughest projects taken up by the EU in a long time.

USA has shown its concern over this project as they claim that the civilian use navigational satellite could be tapped for military use considering the fact that China also helped in the development of the project. In fact, the experts in the Europe themselves believe that this system could very well be used for military purposes by the involved nations.

The project is worth close to around $4.3 billion and it is expected to be functional by 2008. It would have the capabilities to pinpoint the objects, which are one meter apart on earth. This makes it a great tool for military operations. However, most countries in the EU have opposed this kind of misuse of the system and have claimed that if any country planned to do it, they would of course require the approval from the 25 nations involved in the process.

EU transport commissioner, Jacques Barrot said in a statement about Galileo: “The launch today is the proof that Europe can deliver ambitious projects to the benefit of its citizens and companies”. They plan to use the system for car navigational systems along with tracking potentially hazardous cargo. The technology is also expected to create as many as 140,000 new jobs in Europe.