The settlement of the dispute over the industrial work share on Europe's next generation of geostationary-orbiting weather satellites is welcome news in that it allows the program to move forward, but the entire episode was unsettling.rnOfficials in Germany's Transport Ministry were so indignant that a French company, Thales Alenia Space, beat out the German division of Astrium Satellites for the Me-teosat Third Generation (MTG) space segment prime contract that they effectively blocked the start of work on the program for nearly six months. As Europe's largest economy, Germany is the biggest contributor to the European Meteorological Satellite Organization (Eumetsat) and thus to the 3.3 billion-euro ($4 billion) MTG program.
展开▼
