Galileo: End of Ariane 5 makes US aid inevitable

The European Union wants strategic autonomy. Part of this is our own Galileo network, which should offer an alternative to the American GPS. Unfortunately, its own Ariane missiles prove inadequate, and the Russian Soyuz is no longer an option after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What exactly is Galileo?

Galileo is a network of 28 satellites that enable accurate positioning to the metre. Of these, 26 are active. The other two have been placed in the wrong orbit by Soyuz, so they can only be used for search and rescue missions.

Positioning, such as with GPS, is very important for transport, logistics and positioning for the billions of people with a smartphone. Four systems are currently active: in addition to Galileo, these are the American GPS, the Russian system Glonass and the Chinese system Beidou-2, all of which provide worldwide coverage.

American alternatives to the Soyuz

The Europeans can no longer use Russian spacecraft due to the sanctions against Russia. They are therefore forced to shop elsewhere in the world, because the heavy Ariane-5 missiles are no longer made and the successor Ariane-6 is experiencing many delays. Not very smart to throw away old shoes before you have new ones, of course, but the logic of large civil service organizations is often inscrutable.

There are two American alternatives capable of launching the Galileo satellites. These are the expensive Vulcan rockets from the huge American consortium United Launch Alliance ($110 million per launch) and the much cheaper and at least as good Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX ($62 million per launch).

Secret equipment on board Galileo

Complicating matters is that the Galileo satellites contain highly classified communications equipment, which allows European Union politicians to communicate privately around the world. Of course that is something that the Americans and other superpowers like to eavesdrop on.

For that reason, it is in principle excluded that the satellites are launched from outside the EU (French Guyana, where the Arianes and Soyuz rockets were launched, is officially part of the EU and is the only part of the EU on the South American continent). A special security agreement will therefore have to be concluded with the Americans to prevent that scenario, read: no one except ESA personnel is allowed to come near the Galileo satellites.