The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded two contracts to Thales to ensure the security of the Galileo II satellite navigation system.
In total, the value of these contracts exceeds €60 million (approximately $66.2 million), the company said in a prepared statement.
Thales won a Galileo II system infrastructure security monitoring contract on May 17, 2023. Previously, Thales was awarded a cybersecurity specification and design contract for Galileo II on April 17, 2023.
What Is the Galileo II Satellite Navigation System?
ESA launched the Galileo satellite navigation system on December 15, 2016. The system was interoperable with GPS and offered users a wide range of performance and service levels and precise positioning capabilities, ESA noted.
Today, Galileo is the only satellite navigation system controlled by civilians, ESA stated. All smartphones sold in the European market currently support Galileo. Also, Galileo plays a role in several industries in Europe, including the rail and ocean transportation, agriculture, financial services and rescue operations sectors.
What the ESA Galileo II Contracts Mean for Thales
Thales is leading projects to expand the scope of security monitoring for the Galileo II satellite navigation system, the company said. Furthermore, Thales will integrate automated incident response and network traffic monitoring technologies into the system and ensure that users can store large amounts of incident response data on it, the company indicated.
Thales also will provide a Galileo II solution based on an architecture derived from its Cybels security monitoring products, integrated with big data capabilities, the company noted.
Thales Bolsters Its Security Offerings
Along with earning two ESA contracts for Galileo II, Thales in July 2023 reached an agreement to purchase application and data security company Imperva from Thoma Bravo for an enterprise value of $3.6 billion. Thales expects its cybersecurity business to generate €2.4 billion (approximately $22.65 billion) in revenues following the Imperva acquisition, the company said.
In addition, Thales began offering its CipherTrust Data Security Platform as a cloud-based service in July 2023. Organizations can deploy this service as virtual machines (VMs), physical appliances and hybrid clusters to protect against external cyber threats and other security risks, Thales stated.
Thales provides defense and security, aeronautics and space and digital identity and security technologies to global organizations. It also offers the Accelerate Partner Network for MSSPs, MSPs and other technology providers.
