Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) Director of Telecommunications and Navigation, Dr John Paffett, has signed a contract with Dr. Ingo Engeln, Member of the Executive Board of OHB System AG at the Farnborough International Airshow for the construction of a further eight navigation payloads for the European Galileo programme.

Under the contract, worth approximately 80m euro, SSTL will construct the navigation payloads for the second batch of Full Operational Capability satellites (Work Order No. 2), continuing a successful cooperation between the two companies to build the first 14 satellites (Work Order No. 1) under the supervision of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Dr Matt Perkins, CEO of SSTL, commented: "We value our role in the Galileo programme greatly. SSTL is committed to the FOC programme and together with OHB we are making great strides towards the completion of the first satellites - a momentum which we will carry forward with these next eight payloads."

"It is a pleasure to witness this signature, it shows OHB and SSTL are preparing at full speed the building of the additional 8 satellites ordered at the beginning of 2012 for the GALILEO constellation. These will complement the order of 14 satellites initiated in 2010" said Giuliano Gatti, Head of the ESA GALILEO Space Segment Procurement Office.

Today's contract formalises arrangements between the two companies following the award of Work Order No. 2 to the OHB-SSTL team by Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice President in February of this year. Work has already begun on the new batch of payloads and the first is due for delivery in early 2014.

SSTL is responsible for the navigation payloads that will provide all of Galileo's services. Assembled and tested at SSTL's Kepler Technical Facility in the UK, the sophisticated payloads are based on European-sourced equipment, including highly accurate atomic clocks, navigation signal generator, high power travelling wave tube amplifiers and antennas.

The SSTL-OHB team is currently integrating the first of the FOC Work Order No. 1 satellites in at OHB's facilities in Bremen, Germany, which are due for launch next year.

The Full Operational Capability phase of the Galileo programme is managed and fully funded by the European Union. The Commission and ESA have signed a delegation agreement by which ESA acts as design and procurement agent on behalf of the Commission.