After an abortive effort to get private companies to put up much of the development costs, Galileo has been financed almost entirely by the European Union since 2007. It is the first and so far only major infrastructure project managed by the European Commission.

Galileo has had such a troubled history that many doubted it would ever get off the ground. Critics mocked it as “the Common Agricultural Policy in the sky,” a reference to Europe’s program of subsidies for farmers, which eats up nearly 40 percent of the union’s total budget.

A 2011 report to the European Parliament listed a catalog of troubles, noting that Galileo had been particularly blighted in its early years by a familiar problem: political pressure from individual countries to skew the project in favor of their own companies and other immediate interests.

It also ran aground, the report said, on friction between the “pro-Atlanticist” stand of strong American allies like Britain and the “pro-European” outlook of nations that often have strained relations with Washington, like France. “Political disagreements among member states marked the Galileo program since its very beginning,” the report said.

A cable from the United States Embassy in Berlin released by WikiLeaks reported private remarks made in 2009 by the chief executive of a German satellite maker, OHB-System. It quoted the OHB chief, Berry Smutny, describing Galileo as doomed to fail without major changes and “a waste of E.U. taxpayers’ money championed by French interests.” Mr. Smutny, who disputed the comments attributed to him, was fired by the company.

“This is the most stupid remark I have ever heard, and the decision taken by shareholders of OHB was the right one,” François Auque, chief executive of Astrium, a rival satellite company owned by the European defense and aeronautics conglomerate EADS, said in a recent lunch with reporters. “It doesn’t cover any reality at all.”

Astrium won an initial Galileo contract for four satellites. But contracts worth $1 billion for 22 more satellites have all gone to OHB, now one of the primary corporate beneficiaries of Galileo. British companies have also done well, a boon that has helped erode Britain’s initial hostility to the project.