Madrid to take Galileo satellite centre from UK post-Brexit
Friday, January 19, 2018 @ 7:43 PM
MADRID is set to become the new venue for the Galileo satellite system after it leaves London following the UK's exit from the European Union.
The British capital was chosen to host the centre for the continent's advanced GPS sat-nav system nearly eight years ago and the headquarters was expected to be in full operation by late 2018.
It regulates access to the Galileo system and watches over it 24 hours a day when the primary security hub in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, goes offline, responding to security threats and guaranteeing protection of sensitive data as well as acting as an interface with international governments to facilitate encrypting.
All of this will be done from Madrid instead of London from April 1, 2019.
For the moment, only one person is employed full-time at the Galileo centre in London, but it was expected to require 10 permanent staff members once it was completely up and running, possibly rising to between 20 and 30, which is the number forecast for the Madrid hub when it moves across the Channel.
At present, Galileo – created to give more precise results than existing sat-nav systems – has 18 satellites in space and is expected to be fully functional by the year 2020.
Its creation was to prevent the EU's being forced to depend upon a sat-nav system under control of the United States' Armed Forces, and to enable the bloc to have its own under local control.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com