08.08.2017

Handover from WP6 to GSOp successfully achieved

With the Handover Execution Debriefing Meeting (HEDB) on the 30th of June, Spaceopal and its industrial team have completed on time, within just six month since Kick-Off, the transfer of Galileo Operations, including a number of new services and activities, from the operational and contractual framework WP6 started in 2010, to the so called Galileo Service Operator Contract (GSOp).

The GSOp contract between the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and Spaceopal was signed on December 15th, 2016, after a 2 year bid phase. Followingthe successful completion of the handover phase that began on January 1st, Spaceopal has now taken up its responsibility enabling the GSA to provide Galileo services to users around the globe.

With the experience of six years’ successfully operating the growing Galileo system, Spaceopal is now providing operational services managing  two Galileo Control Centres (GCCs) in Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany) and Fucino (Italy), the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) in Torrejón de Ardoz (Spain) and a worldwide geo-distributed ground stations network .

The next years will be marked by completing the Satellite constellation from currently 18 to 24 satellites plus 6 orbital spares, evolving the ground infrastructure, expending the services up to full operational capability by 2020, and supporting  the GSA to ensure that Galileo is positioned as one of the GNSS constellation of choice by that time .

Spaceopal is looking forward to working together with its industrial team including Telespazio, DLR GFR, INECO, T-Systems, SES Astra Tech Com, CNES, Thales Alenia France, INRIM and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in achieving all of these goals in the upcoming years and ensuring that every GNSS user is able to receive a fully functional and precise Galileo signal on their device.