Airbus Defence and Space, part of the Europe-based global major Airbus aerospace and defence group, announced on Tuesday that it had successfully concluded the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the ‘system concept’ for the second generation of Galileo navigation satellites. Galileo is the European Union’s (EU’s) own global navigation satellite system (GNSS).    

The PDR was a key point in the programme. During the review, both the company’s initial design and the customer’s requirements for the system were fully reviewed and agreed. PDR approval meant that equipment and module verification, qualification and acceptance could be advanced. Payload verification was already under way. The next step, which would be in the near future, would be the Critical Design Review for the satellite structure.

The deployment of this second Galileo generation would be a key development for European GNSS services, and for users around the world, affirmed Airbus. It would increase the accuracy of the system but also make it more secure (from jamming and spoofing) and increase its availability and reliability.

“[T]he Airbus site in Friedrichshafen [in Germany], on Lake Constance [also called the Bodensee], is preparing for an industrialised production line for currently six second-generation Galileo satellites,” reported the company. “The satellite integration centre is being completely upgraded to meet current and future requirements for efficient, environmentally friendly, safe and secure production for the Galileo second-generation satellites.”

The first of the second-generation Galileo satellites was expected to be launched in 2024. Each would have a mass of some 2.3 t and would have a design operational life of around 15 years. They would be all-electric spacecraft and be placed into medium Earth orbits. They would employ ‘building blocks’ already flight proven on Airbus’ Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. Their navigation payload would be modular and flexible, with the capacity for future growth.

Although the EU funded, owned and managed the Galileo system, its lack of space experience led it to conclude an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA), under which the ESA became the prime system developer and design authority for Galileo. (ESA is not part of the EU.) Similarly, under the same tripartite agreement, the EU Agency for the Space Programme was made the Galileo operation and exploitation manager.