After setbacks and threats of cancellation, Europe has committed to building its own GPS system. ONE NIGHT in 1609, Galileo Galilei made history when he pointed a telescope at the sky and realised that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. The 400th anniversary of his observations was supposed to coincide with an event that the Italian astronomer would have relished even more than the 'Year of Astronomy' tag that it also brought to 2009. This was supposed to be the year in which the world's most sophisticated global satellite navigation system, named Galileo in the astronomer's honour, would be fully operational. Four centuries after Galilei looked into the sky to understand our place in the universe, 30 state-of-the-art satellites should have been looking down on us, their powerful beams offering answers about where we are now and how to get where we want to go next.
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