Inauguration of site of Galileo station at Kourou

The site of a ground station for Galileo, Europe's global navigation satellite system, inside the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), near Kourou in French Guiana, was inaugurated on 19 November 2009.
The site, which was made available by France's Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), will play an essential role in the setting up of the Galileo system, since it will accommodate the most comprehensive of the Galileo ground segment stations. The Kourou station will consist of a telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) station to monitor and control the Galileo constellation satellites, a sensor station (GSS) for acquisition of the satellite navigation signals, and two uplink stations (ULS) for transmission of navigation and integrity messages to the satellites.
The site was inaugurated in the presence of René Oosterlinck, Director of the Galileo programme and navigation-related activities at ESA, and of Joël Barre, Director of CNES/CSG.