Europe’s rival to the US GPS network, known as Galileo, is late, over budget, and will not be profitable for years, according to reports in the German press.
The 32-satellite system was expected to deliver geographical positioning data accurate to one metre by 2018, with the first satellites being launched next year.
The European Commission said last year that Galileo will begin operation in 2014 and a report by the European Court of Auditors later in the same year estimated the project would cost €10bn.
But the project will now not be ready till 2018 and could cost as much as €20bn, according to a new report by the German government, seen by the Financial Times Deutschland.
The paper also reported that the European Commission expects the system to make losses in the long term.
China, India and Russia are all developing similar systems to reduce their dependence on signals from the US GPS network. Galileo is the only such project funded from an entirely non-defence budget.
