The Galileo program is a European-sponsored satellite navigation program that is to provide worldwide navigation and time services to a large variety of transportation, telecommunication, scientific, recreational, and other applications. Although Galileo is similar in many ways to the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the United States, it is primarily dedicated to civil users and plans to be independent of but interoperable with GPS. As Europe's largest collaborative project to date, Galileo promises to unite many European technical and management resources in the development of a significant satellite-based global navigation and timing system capability. It is expected to provide long-term economic and system performance benefits to Europe and to the world.