Posted: Tue, Jun 28, 2005, 7:59 AM ET (1159 GMT)
The European organization overseeing the Galileo satellite navigation system announced Monday that it has approved a joint bid by two industry consortia that had been competing for the rights to develop the system. The Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), established by the European Commission and ESA, said that it had approved a combined bid by the Eurely and iNavSat consortia. The two had previously submitted separate bids to run Galileo, but the GJU had been unable to find any significant difference between the two. The GJU now believes that the joint bid offers "substantial improvements" over the separate bids, although few details about the combined bid were disclosed. The two consortia, which combined include most major European aerospace and satellite companies, announced their combined bid last week, reportedly after being prompted by GJU officials to do so.
