ESA Orders Four More Galileo 2nd Gen Satellites From Thales Alenia Space and Airbus — Fleet Grows to 16, Delivery in 2031

Each prime has held a contract for six G2 satellites since 2021. The satellites carry fully digital navigation payloads, a better-performing antenna, inter-satellite links and an advanced atomic-clock configuration, and will join the 38 first-generation satellites, all but four of which have been launched. Laurent Jaffart, ESA's director of resilience, navigation and connectivity, called the contracts "an investment in Europe's ability to navigate its own future"; Alain Fauré, head of space systems at Airbus Defence and Space, tied the satellites to "European security and defence". The Commission manages and funds Galileo under the EU Space Programme; ESA is its design authority and EUSPA the service provider.

ESA has kept G2 dual-sourced; if Project Bromo goes ahead, both sources would sit in one company. Thales Alenia Space is a Thales–Leonardo joint venture, and Thales, Leonardo and Airbus plan to merge their space businesses in Project Bromo, which still needs EU merger clearance and which Germany's OHB has said it would consider challenging in court. The four satellites Signal No. 176 reported come from competing primes; by their 2031 delivery they may come from one. The order itself is a continuity buy of identical satellites. The structure matters for the next G2 batch, when the obvious European alternative to a merged supplier would be OHB, which built Galileo's full-operational-capability satellites. The Commission's decision on Bromo will set the terms of that choice.