The European Commission has awarded contracts for building eight more Galileo satellites, plus a separate contract to launch the rest of the constellation. A consortium led by OHB System AG and Surry Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) will build the FOC (Full Operational Capability) satellites while incumbent vendor ArianeSpace will provide launch services.

OHB systems will be the prime contractor for building the group of satellites, building the eight satellite platforms and executing final integration in Germany. SSTL will be the payload "prime," assembling, integrating, and testing the navigational payloads in the UK. OHB and SSTL are already building the first fourteen FOC satellites for the 20 billion euro Galileo program

Arianespace (News - Alert) signed an agreement on February 2 to launch the Galileo satellites on the Ariane 5 rocket for launch dates in 2013 and 2014 to complete the 26 satellite constellation. The contract provides for adopting the Ariane 5 rocket to simultaneously launch four Galileo satellites into orbit. Arianespace has already used the Soyuz launch vehicle to put two satellites into orbit at once.

All of the launches will take place from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. The satellites will be placed into a circular orbit of 23,000 kilometers. Previous launches conducted by Arianespace included the Giove-A and Giove-B in-orbit validation satellites to secure the Galileo GPS frequencies for use and the first two IOV (In Orbit Validation) satellites using a Soyuz launcher from Guiana Space Center.

There's more than a little politics involved. Arianespace needs to line up a steady stream of customers for the Ariane 5 launcher, which is often criticized for being too expensive when compared to Russian alternatives.

Galileo is Europe's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), an independent version of America's GPS global positional system and Russia's GLONASS system. Galileo will provide real-time positioning, navigation, and timing services for both government and commercial use. Once in place, the Galileo constellation will have a total of 30 satellites in medium earth orbit.

The constellation is expected to provide better accuracy for commercial/civilian users than the American GPS system since anyone anywhere in the world will have at least four and as many as six to eight satellites visible from the ground.   Positioning to within a few centimeters is expected with six to eight satellites, even at higher latitudes where U.S. GPS system coverage tends to be weaker.