ESA Telecommunications and Navigation team (2001)

ESA navigation and telecommunication staff at ESA ESTEC in June 2001. Work on satellite navigation at ESA started in the early 1990’s when a number of telecommunications engineers began researching the feasibility of a European satellite navigation system. After the Ministerial Council of 1995 in Toulouse approved the ARTES-9 programme within the Telecommunications Directorate, the GNSS-1 and GNSS-2 studies were initiated. These studies laid the groundwork for EGNOS and Galileo. Later, in 1999, the teams working on navigation were grouped in a new Directorate with a Dedicated Programme Board (PB-NAV).