Feature

Mediasatellite Wins Ireland's Ticket to Galileo

Mediasatellite has secured a prestigious contract to provide engineering support services to Galileo, the European Space Agency's (ESA) global satellite project.
 
Mediasatellite will provide engineering support to two Ground Control Centres and eighteen Sensor Stations around the globe, from Antarctica to Tahiti, under the current €1.5 billion development phase of the project.

The Cork-based satellite communications company has been awarded the contract in association with Sogeti, the global IT services specialist.

"We’re delighted to have won this critical bid to deliver services for Galileo," said Mediasatellite CEO Rory FitzPatrick. "We’ll be supplying component specifications, installation support and acceptance testing to the Ground Control Centres and Sensor Stations coming online over the next 18 months."

Galileo is Europe’s global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under European civilian control. The fully deployed Galileo system will consist of 30 satellites, positioned in three circular orbits around the planet.

Galileo will be commercially operational from 2010 and will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to a range of one metre, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system. This makes it suitable for both commercial and public sector applications where safety is crucial, such as running trains, guiding cars and landing aircraft.

"This is an exciting opportunity for Ireland," added FitzPatrick. "The kinds of public and commercial applications Galileo will open up in Europe are an excellent match for Ireland's IT companies, tech workers, and manufacturers. A whole new industry will arise out of Galileo."

Developed through a joint initiative of the ESA and the European Union, Galileo is optimised for civil applications and will offer the accuracy and continuity essential for a new generation of public and commercial services in areas including transport, telecommunications, agriculture and fisheries.

MEDIASATELLITE was founded in 2000 and is Ireland's leading satellite broadband communications provider.