Europe Reluctantly Chooses SpaceX to Launch Its GPS Satellites

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 138 points – Europe reluctantly chooses SpaceX to launch its GPS satellites
gizmodo.com

Europe Reluctantly Chooses SpaceX to Launch Its GPS Satellites::Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to undertake its first launch of European satellites equipped with classified technology, specifically for the Galileo system.

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Stupid headline. Europe’s sat nav / global position platform is Galileo, not GPS.

Seems like a "Q-tip" or "Kleenex" type of thing. It isn't 'sat nav' either as that is a product the end-user uses and the installation is used for more than turn-by-turn navigation.

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Why is ESA launching satellites for the US military Global Positioning System?

The headline has been dumbed down for Americans who think all global sat nav is “GPS.”

That said, if you read the article, is does say that this is for Galileo, not GPS.

Alright but Global Positioning System is also a description of what all of them do, even if it's the name of a specific constellation it's not inaccurate to refer to the others as that. Even though it's not technically correct it's... actually I could argue that they're all technically systems used to give positioning information globally.

The generic term is not GPS, it's GNSS.

Maybe that would be an argument if they used lower-case global positioning system rather than specifically GPS.

Yawn.

Its a global positioning system, which has become a generic term (and has been since the late 90's). Just because you use the term "satnav" doesn't mean everyone does.

That term never caught on in the US, and was hardly used even 30 years ago (I say this as someone who adopted portable satnav as soon as it was available to consumers).

Its a global positioning system

But it's not GPS. When referring to a generic system they use GNSS as abbreviation.

As per Wikipedia:

As of 2023, four global navigation systems are operational: the United States’s Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System,[1] and the European Union's Galileo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_navigation

This is the best summary I could come up with:

SpaceX has reached a deal to launch four Galileo satellites next year in coordination with the European Space Agency, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Two launches on Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rockets will add to the 28 satellites currently orbiting Earth in Europe’s global navigation system.

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A spokesperson for the European Commission told the WSJ they are “taking all necessary steps to ensure that the Galileo constellation continues to provide outstanding services in the coming months and years.”

The Falcon 9 rockets carrying Galileo satellites will launch from the United States, according to the European Space Agency’s Director of Navigation Javier Benedicto.

The European Commission is not eager to rely on a U.S. company to deliver critical infrastructure into space, but the war in Russia and delays in Europe’s Ariane rocket program have left the continent with no other options, officials say.

(tldr: 10 sentences skipped)

The six-year mission to investigate the dark universe just recently found its guide stars again after a rocky start that has been far from smooth sailing.

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The original article contains 374 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Hm, I wonder why. Ariane system can launch such satellites.

Ariane 6 service start got late. Not Ariane 5 decommisionning. So they end with no Ariane launcher for some time.

That's some poor planning. Am not sure how big the satellites are, but ESA does have smaller rockets. Also JAXA is there, as well as some others. Kind of surprised they went with SpaceX.

In 20 years, the EU have spent 10 billion in taxpayer money to send only 26 satellites to orbit (almost 400 million each). A SpaceX Falcon 9 can send almost 10 Galileo satellites to MEO at once for 62 million. So the question is not why they are hiring SpaceX now but why haven't they used SpaceX before?

(Falcon 9's capacity to MEO is 8,000 kg, and the typical Galileo satellite weighs 738 kg).

Because the goal of the government isn't to turn a profit. Ideally, government funded needs should be used to create jobs in the country or region that government is in charge of.

If everyone switched to SpaceX for their launches, then they'd be handing a monopoly to Elon, and nobody wants that. Instead they need to be funding their own space program and drive down the costs to be competitive with SpaceX so they can be self sufficient.

It's a problem that they need to use SpaceX right now, for several reasons.

Because it's controlled by a lunatic

ESA has its own launch capability x and is choosing SpaceX anyway. The lunatic thing must not be a big deal.

Ariane 5 is retired. Ariane 6 isn't ready yet. Vega is small. What medium-lift launch capacity do they have?

The launch costs of Galileo satellites were much cheaper than 400 millions per satellite. The budget you mention covers the global development, deployment and continuous operation of the project.

They used ariane 5 rockets to send 2 satellites at a price tag of 150-200 million. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#:~:text=Total%20launch%20price%20of%20an,million%20as%20of%20January%202015

Compare that with the price of a Falcon 9.

Except they launched them 4 at a time on Ariane 5 (which has similar capacity as falcon, so doubtful they would launch much more at a time with space, also it was available at the time of the start of the project...), and two at a time on the cheaper Soyouz. Also, it's way better to pay even 200 million (more likely less than 150 millions) to domestic companies to boost your own economy than to pay 70 million to your number one competitor...

SpaceX is still overall bleeding money, kept afloat by more suckers buying into it as well as the US government overpaying for launches.

Why the hell would they voluntarily give a deal to a well known con man/scammer? Do they not read the news? This is a pretty big deal so the decision makes them look really bad and incompetent.

SpaceX launches rockets multiple times per week (just here in Florida) at a great price and has an almost unbelievable success record. Second place isn’t even close.

Elon Musk is a nut job, but for anyone that needs to put anything in orbit SpaceX is really the best option.

As I understand it, It's also the company he has the least control of.

I personally think that it is incredibly irresponsible to give musk any control over the deployment of critical infrastructure after his stunts in Ukraine. What guarantees do we have that he is not backdooring these satellites while they are in his posession so that he can shutdown Galileo on a whim in the same way he did with starlink?