Telespazio plays a leading role in Galileo, having built at the Fucino Space Centre one of the two Control Centres which manage the constellation and the programme mission. Through Spaceopal, a company formed as a joint venture with DLR GfR, Telespazio is responsible for the operations and integrated logistics of the entire system, ensuring the management and coordination of the services. Spaceopal operates through the Galileo Control Centres in Oberpfaffenhofen (Munich) and Fucino (L'Aquila) for the provision of the navigation signals and the in-orbit control of the satellites.
After the launch, the LEOP operations (Launch and Early Orbit Phase) are performed by the CNES Space Centre in Toulouse, under the supervision of Spaceopal and the European Space Agency (ESA). Upon completion of the LEOP, the control of the two satellites will be transferred to the Galileo Control Centres in Oberpfaffenhofen.
The Galileo Control Centre in Fucino will be involved in the IOT activities (In Orbit Test) of the programme, to verify the functionality and performance of the payload on board the satellites. Subsequently, Fucino will operate for the uplink and validation of the navigation message and associated services.
An important role was played by Telespazio France during the launch operations, through the teams in Toulouse and Kourou. The subsidiary of Telespazio supports the CNES and Arianespace respectively in the management of the launch centre in Guyana and in the operations of launch and early orbit the Galileo satellites.
Telespazio is involved in the validation campaign of the programme's early services and in the implementation of applications based on Galileo, which will encourage the development and dissemination of innovative services in multiple sectors: transport, telecommunications, geodesy, oil exploration and mining.
The launch of two new satellites marked the resumption of the Galileo programme, after the problem originated by the launcher in the previous launch of August 22, 2014, which led to the release of two satellites into a wrong orbit. Thanks to the work done by Spaceopal and its partners during the last months, under the coordination of ESA, the two satellites were brought back to a safer orbit, the activation and verification of the payload were completed and, even though in a degraded orbit, the two satellites are now ready to provide the Galileo signal.
The Galileo programme is a collaboration of the European Union with ESA to improve the technological independence of Europe and establish international standards for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).
The purpose of the programme is to provide a global navigation satellite system, a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service, interoperable with the US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems. At full operation, Galileo will consist of 30 Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites and a broad ground infrastructures.