During the Space Access conference panel session on international perspectives, Henry Spencer recounted the story of the GIOVE-A satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL). When the European Galileo satellite navigation project put out a call for proposals to build a prototype to test the system and to utilize the frequencies allocated to them before the rights expired, they were surprised to get an entry from little SSTL, a spinoff of the University of Surrey's student satellite program. They decided to give Surrey a chance and awarded the firm a contract to build one of a pair of prototypes. "The satellite was designed, built and tested in a rapid (30 month) programme and was launched, on schedule [and on budget], on 28th December 2005". After 27 months in orbit it has been declared a complete success : ESA confirms SSTL’s GIOVE-A “full mission success” - SSTL - Mar.31.08.

Meanwhile, a consortium that included the giant aerospace firms Astrium and Alcatel were assigned GIOVE-B. After many delays and overruns, the spacecraft is currently scheduled to launch in April. Just in case there are further problems with GIOVE-B, ESA contracted Surrey to build the Giove-A2 satellite.

This is another example of how an entrepreneurial, innovative, NewSpace style approach can succeed at rapid, low cost development. (See more examples here.)