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The signing of the contracts covering launch, systems and satellite activities marks the start of building the Galileo operational infrastructure, the ESA said.

"Galileo will be Europe's own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control", the space agency said, noting it will be inter-operable with the U.S. Global Positioning System and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System.

"A user will be able to take a position with the same receiver from any of the satellites in any combination", the ESA said. "By offering dual frequencies as standard, however, Galileo will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the meter range, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system."

ESA scientists said the fully deployed Galileo system will consist of 30 satellites -- 27 operational and three active spares -- positioned in three circular Earth orbits at 76,187 miles above the Earth.

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