GPS:Germany's OHB to win EU Galileo satellite contract

"We havent heard yet if its eight or 14 satellites," said Philip Davies, a senior official at Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) Ltd, British partner of OHB in the bid "I am 100 percent sure it will be OHB which will be chosen tomorrow," said Davies, whose company is an offshoot of Surrey University. Such a decision would be a blow to European aerospace giant EADS which led its own Galileo bidding group including Thales Alenia Space.

The satellite network is meant to challenge the dominance of the US-built Global Positioning System (GPS) which is widely used in navigation devices. The EU aims to have the network up in space by 2013.

The EU has struggled to secure financing for the project, originally put at 3.4 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars), and has had to tap unused funds from the bloc's massive agricultural budget.

Germany's OHB to win EU Galileo satellite contract: source