The European GPS contender Galileo has successfully launched its first test satellite. In the news I just heard that it will still take until the end of the century before the system might be used, but certainly a historic milestone.

Not surprisingly, the launch has been delayed but the positive outlook for highest precision (< 0.1m) and many new jobs (140'000 by 2020) is promising.

Another marketing advantage is certainly the fact that - unlike the GPS system (Pendagon) - the Galileo system will not be run by the military, so is for non-military use only. At least in theory, but of course I am pretty sure that if required it would also have to serve such purposes!

Of course the sky is not all blue. The system is losing its competitive lead due to many fights between the EU countries about the budget and which companies will do what. If they still pull it off with a technology lead then it might be quite a psychological boost for European-wide projects, but until that happens many joint German, British, Italian, Spanish and French company meetings (EADS, Alcatel, Finmeccanica, Thales, Galileo Sistemas y Servicios) have to happen. Since all are actually also competing companies the outcome is by no means clear cut.