Flash News - The foundation stone was laid here on Thursday for one of the two centres destined to control a sophisticated European satellite navigation system when it comes into operation next year.
Funded by the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), the Galileo system is scheduled to become operational in 2011 or 2012.
It will use 30 satellites orbiting the earth to pinpoint the position of people, cars, ships and planes anywhere on the globe. It is expected to be accurate to within a few metres.
The system will rely to a large extent on Italian technology, thanks to the involvement of Telespazio, which is controlled by Italy's Finmeccanica and is one of the world's top players in the sector of space operations.
Work on the Galileo Control Centre began on Thursday at the Telespazio Space Centre in Fucino, near the central Italian city of L'Aquila. The new infrastructure will eventually cover a surface area of 4,000 square metres.
A second control centre is under construction in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich and is to be managed by the German Space Agency (DLR).
"The Galileo program is important for its technological contents and also because it represents the EU's strategic commitment to the space sector," said Finmeccanica CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini.
The Galileo system's most obvious applications are in road, rail, air and maritime traffic control. The ability to locate vehicles precisely would be a boon for commercial transport companies and also facilitate route searching, speed control and guidance systems.
But it could also be used in social services, for example with the disabled or elderly; in the justice and customs services, to locate suspects and control borders; and in finance, improving security by synchronising data transmission between banks.
According to project leaders, the economic implications for the coming 15 years are tremendous, with an estimated 4.6 return on investment and the creation of more than 100 000 jobs.
A civilian venture, Galileo will offer competition to the United States' GPS system, which is managed by the U.S. military.
The American system, currently the only global satellite navigation system available, is less precise than Galileo is setting out to be and has other disadvantages deriving from its military development.
