It looks increasingly likely that public funds will foot the entire bill for sending the European Union’s (EU) satellite-navigation service Galileo into space, with the European Parliament voting for the troubled project to remain under EU control.

MEPs accepted that the collapse of a private-public partnership formed to launch Galileo would create a financial hole of around 2.4 billion euros to get it operational, and agreed that this money should be drawn direct from EU budgets.

Galileo is designed to be more precise than the USA’s GPS system and would also have the advantage of being designed for civilian use: GPS can be called upon by the US military, potentially limiting its capacity.