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China to help Europe Develop GPS Rival China is to contribute to a new global satellite navigation system being developed by European nations. The Galileo satellite system 1 will offer a more accurate civilian alternative to the Global Positioning System, operated by the US military. China will provide 230m Euros in 2 funding and will cooperate with technical, manufacturing and market development. China will help Galileo to 3 become the major world infrastructure for the growing market for location services, said Loyola de Palacio, EU transport commissioner. A new center that will coordinate co-operation was also announced 4 by the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology not long 5 ago .The China-Europe Global Navigation Satellite System Technical Training and Cooperation Center will be 6 located at Beijing University. China has a substantial satellite launch industry and could potentially help the Galileo satellites. The US has claimed that Galileo could interfere 7 with the US ability to downgrade the GPS service during military conflicts. European officials say this is unfounded and counter that US opposition 8 is due to the commercial challenge Galileo would present to GPS. Galileo will be precise to within a meter, while civilian GPS service is accurate to around 10 meters. The Galileo satellite constellation will 9 consist of 27 operational and three reserve satellites orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 23, 600 km. The satellites will be strung along three medium-Earth orbits at 56 degrees inclination to the equator and will provide global coverage. The system should be operational by 2008 and the entire project is expected to 10 cost around 3.2 billion Euros. | 
