Mon, Sep 05, 2011
Contest Awards Winner's Names To Navigation Satellites
The Galileo Program is Europe's own venture into
the field of satellite navigation. It is putting in place a global
satellite navigation system similar to GPS. With the ever growing
importance of satellite navigation applications for both businesses
and citizens, Galileo will ensure the independence of Europe in
this important domain, securing the availability of those
applications.
But the individual satellites in the constellation needs names,
or so the Europeans think. And so, the European Commission has
rolled out a competition in the 25 Member States to give names to
the satellites which will be launched until 2019. Children aged
9-11 can participate. From now through November 15th, children
living in the EU and born in 2000, 2001 and 2002 - when the Galileo
program started - are invited to make a drawing related to space
and aeronautics, scan it or take a digital photograph of it and
upload it onto the competition's website. In each country, a
national jury will select the best drawing and the winning child
will have his or her name given to one of the satellites of the
Galileo constellation. Satellites launches will take place
regularly as of 2012 until the full constellation (which should
count 30 satellites) is complete. The order in which the names of
the children will be given to the satellites is determined by the
alphabetical order of the member states written in the national
language(s). The child with the best drawing related to space or
aeronautics in each Member State will have his or her name given to
a satellite of the Galileo program.
The first two satellites to be launched on October 20th will
bear the names of the winning children from Belgium (Thijs) and
Bulgaria (Natalia) where the first competition took place earlier
this year.
European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, responsible
for enterprise and industry policies, said: "With satellite
navigation, space exploration, and space observation, the topic of
space is of ever increasing importance for citizens and for our
economic future. We wish to incite the creativity of children, and
for them to become enthusiastic about space and its opportunities
from a young age. We reward this creativity with the unique
opportunity - of offering 27 children the chance to give a
satellite their name."
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