[21][22] In 1999, the different concepts of the three main contributors of the European Space Agency (ESA) (Germany, France and Italy)[23] for Galileo were compared and reduced to one by a joint team of engineers from all three countries.

The attention that was brought to this multi-billion euro growing error in sales forecasts resulted in a general awareness in the commission and elsewhere that it was unlikely that the programme would yield the return on investment that had previously been suggested to investors and decision-makers.

[39] One of the reasons given for developing Galileo as an independent system was that position information from GPS can be made significantly inaccurate by the deliberate application of universal selective availability (SA) by the US military.

GPS is widely used worldwide for civilian applications; Galileo's proponents argued that civil infrastructure, including aircraft navigation and landing, should not rely solely upon a system with this vulnerability.

In June 2004, in a signed agreement with the United States, the European Union agreed to switch to a binary offset carrier modulation 1.1, or BOC(1,1), allowing the coexistence of both GPS and Galileo, and the future combined use of both systems.

On 30 November 2007, the 27 EU transport ministers involved reached an agreement that Galileo should be operational by 2013,[43] but later press releases suggest it was delayed to 2014.

[46] German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee was particularly doubtful about the consortium's ability to end the infighting at a time when only one testbed satellite had been successfully launched.

[52] In 2010, the think-tank Open Europe estimated the total cost of Galileo from start to 20 years after completion at €22.2 billion, borne entirely by taxpayers.

In March 2010, it was verified that the budget for Galileo would only be available to provide the 4 IOV and 14 FOC satellites by 2014, with no funds then committed to bring the constellation above this 60% capacity.

In that same month, Wikileaks revealed that Berry Smutny, the CEO of the German satellite company OHB-System, said that Galileo "is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests".

[64] In January 2017, news agencies reported that six of the passive hydrogen masers (PHM) and three of the rubidium atomic clocks (RAFS) had failed.

[68] According to ESA, they concluded with their industrial partners for the rubidium atomic clocks that some implemented testing and operational measures were required.

[88] On 30 November 2007, the 27 member states of the European Union unanimously agreed to move forward with the project, with plans for bases in Germany and Italy.

[89] On 3 April 2009, Norway too joined the programme pledging €68.9 million toward development costs and allowing its companies to bid for the construction contracts.

Switzerland's financial commitment for the period 2014–2020 will be calculated in accordance with the standard formula applied for the Swiss participation in the EU research Framework Programme.

If they were left to run indefinitely, though, their timekeeping would drift, so they need to be synchronized regularly with a network of even more stable ground-based reference clocks.

These clocks on the ground are gathered together within the parallel functioning Precise Timing Facilities in the Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen Galileo Control Centres.

This return message feature is new in a satellite constellation and is considered a major upgrade compared to the existing Cospas-Sarsat system, which up to then did not provide feedback to the user.

[124][125][126][127] In 2004, the Galileo System Test Bed Version 1 (GSTB-V1) project validated the on-ground algorithms for Orbit Determination and Time Synchronisation (OD&TS).

[134] This enables key validation tests, since earth-based receivers such as those in cars and phones need to "see" a minimum of four satellites in order to calculate their position in three dimensions.

[147] On 23 August 2014, launch service provider Arianespace announced that the flight VS09 experienced an anomaly and the satellites were injected into an incorrect orbit.

[159] Satellites GSAT-207 (Antonianna), GSAT-212 (Lisa), GSAT-213 (Kimberley), GSAT-214 (Tijmen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 17 November 2016 on an Ariane 5 ES.

[162][163] Satellites GSAT-219 (Tara), GSAT-220 (Samuel), GSAT-221 (Anna), GSAT-222 (Ellen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 25 July 2018 on an Ariane 5 ES.

[167] During 2014, ESA and its industry partners began studies on Galileo Second Generation (G2G) satellites, which were to be presented to the EC for the late 2020s launch period.

[168] One idea was to employ electric propulsion, which would eliminate the need for an upper stage during launch and allow satellites from a single batch to be inserted into more than one orbital plane.

[172][30] In July 2006, an international consortium of universities and research institutions embarked on a study of potential scientific applications of the Galileo constellation.

[182][non-primary source needed] An extensive list of enabled devices, for various uses, on land, sea and in air is frequently updated at the EU website.

[184] Effective from 1st April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an accident.

[188] On 15 November 2018, the FCC granted the requested waiver, explicitly allowing non-federal consumer devices to access Galileo E1 and E5 frequencies.

The ring shows different modes of transport, for which satellite navigation was developed: an aircraft, a car, a lorry, a train and a container ship.