BRUSSELS / HANOVER. The “Satellite Initiative GAUSS” initiated at the research airport of Braunschweig won together with its international partners the first EU-wide tender to the certification of the European satellite system GALILEO. "The order from Brussels is a clear signal that Braunschweig and Niedersachsen play a leading role in the area of certification of satellite navigation", explained the Minister for Economic Affairs Walter Hirche today in Hanover. "The concentrated know-how at the Research Airport in Braunschweig creates new jobs for the future", the minister said.

The tender was announced by the owner of GALILEO, the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA). The order contains the preparation of a "green book" for certifications. The Green Book shall define, how future safety-critical applications in the area of the satellite navigation can be certified. GAUSS asserted itself with the offer against three established European competing consortia.

"This order gives us the possibility to strengthen develop our existing head start and to establish Braunschweig as a European certification centre ", Harry Evers, manager of GAUSS, said. “The performed preliminary works and the lasting political support already pay off today".

Partners in the project are the Technical University of Braunschweig (Institute of Flight Guidance, Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR, Institute of Transportation Systems) as well as the companies Aerodata, eta_max space and NavCert from Braunschweig. The non-German enterprises belong to the European GAUSS bidder consortium are TÜV Product Service, The 425 Company (both Great Britain), EADS APSYS (France), INOV INESC (Portugal) as well as via donau (Austria).

The European satellite navigation system GALILEO will offer in contrast to his American counterpart GPS (Global Positioning System) a signal guarantee for encrypted frequencies. So applications for the positioning from space for safety-critical applications, e.g. approaches for landing and port entrances, become usable. Safety-sensitive utilisations of the technology like these need a certification - comparable with the general inspection of a car.

The initiative GAUSS founded in February 2006 is named after the mathematician and researcher from Niedersachsen Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß. GAUSS is at the Research Airport of Braunschweig a part of the Gesamtzentrum für Verkehr Braunschweig (GZVB). Thus Niedersachsen bundles up the already available competences at the Research Airport. GAUSS shall be built up to a European-wide centre for certifications and services in the area of the satellite navigation during the next years.

The European satellite navigation system GALILEO provides a trendsetting technology for the development of new products and services for all applications in the area of mobility available. Thanks to the technical superiority and the liability-juridical advantages of GALILEO compared with GPS the application possibilities are also more varied. The satellite navigation in transport will play the leading role. Due to the high precision the system can be used also in safety-critical areas. Besides, there are possible applications, for example, in the agriculture, in the civil defence or in the localisation of mineral resources. The economical usage of the satellite technology can create up to 150,000 high tech jobs throughout Europe until 2010, according to the European Space Agency ESA.