December 20, 2018 – Thales Alenia Space has signed a new tranche of the framework contract originally signed on October 18 with the European Space Agency (ESA), on behalf of the European Commission and the European GNSS Agency (GSA), to develop and deploy new versions of the ground-based Galileo Mission Segment (GMS) and the Galileo Security Facility (GSF), both known under the designation “WP2X”. The new tranche of this contract, worth about 130 million euros through June 2021, will concern the completion of PRS (Public Regulated Service), adaptation of the ground segment to provide an interface, via computerized POCPs (Point of Contact Platforms), between the Galileo Security Monitoring Center (GSMC), which manages PRS access to the new system, and Government entities which control access on their own receiving stations. Thales Alenia Space will direct a consortium including major companies in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. It will call on the Thales group for both prime contractor support and for the architecture and integration of security components and the POCPs, and on Leonardo for the Galileo Security Facility (GSF), which manages PRS service and the POCPs.