The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor and aerospace companies have reached an agreement on Israel's participation in Galileo - European satellite radio navigation program. Government ministries will budget NIS 100 million over five years, half from the Ministry of Industry, while participating aerospace companies will contribute NIS 50 million.
The companies are Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Rafael (Israel Armament Development Authority Ltd.), Orbit/FR (Nasdaq: ORFR.OB), BAE Systems Rokar International, and AccuBeat Ltd.. The participation model reached with the companies makes Israel's participation in the Galileo program possible. The other participating ministries are Defense, Finance, and Science and Technology.
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor director general Raanan Dinur said the benefits from participation in the Galileo program included cooperation with leading European aerospace companies, and the accumulation of extensive know-how in a field in which Israel has no experience. Most of the potential for participating companies will come from applications to be developed for Galileo, which will determine its commercial success.
The Office of the Chief Scientist will also support R&D for these applications. Israeli and European companies will establish a consortium for these developments.
Galileo is the world's largest commercial space program, aimed at creating a civilian precision time and location system. The EU and European Space Agency (ESA) launched the program with a civilian perspective, in contrast the Pentagon's military Global Positioning System (GPS). The Europeans hope to penetrate markets and control markets segments currently dominated by the US.
Galileo's commercial operation is scheduled to begin by the end of the decade. EU figures indicate that the global turnover from satellite navigation systems will exceed €200 million by 2020.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on January 30, 2005