The European Space Agency (ESA) has contracts to launch and test two experimental satellites to confirm Galileo's technology, and also to provide the first four of the 30 satellites.

The first satellite, GIOVE-A, successfully launched in December 2005, but its companion, GIOVE-B -- initially scheduled to be hoisted aloft in early 2006 -- has twice been postponed.

Dordain, who is ESA's director general, said the delay was "due to a technical problem with a component which failed during tests, but we also encountered organisational problems."

"As soon as the problems emerged, we set up three investigative groups, working in parallel. When they reported back, we took technical and organisational action that should enable us to launch GIOVE-B this year."

Dordain indicated concern that the flaws with GIOVE B could also be reproduced in the first four Galileo satellites.

"We don't want to wait for technical problems to surface in order to take decisions," Dordain, who was speaking to journalists at a New Year's get-together, said.

"We want action to be set in place by March enabling IOVE [the four-satellite contract] to move forward properly."

Galileo is being promoted as being more accurate than GPS, giving mariners, pilots, drivers and others an almost pinpoint-accurate navigational tool.

Unlike GPS, Galileo will stay under civilian control, increasing the European Union's strategic independence.

The project has hit other hitches. A contract for ceding operation of Galileo to an eight-member private consortium has still to be signed, and the EU has yet to decide where its overseer, a public body called the Galileo Supervisory Authority, will be sited.

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