LONDON — Europe's ambitious and perhaps largest joint technology project — the Galileo satellite navigation system — has reached another impasse, having lurched from one missed deadline to another.

The result of the latest missed deadline , by the eight member consortium that was so keen to sign up to build and operate the global positioning system, means European taxpayers will now have to take all the risks.

Large corporations such as Inmarsat, EADS, Thales, Alcatel-Lucent and Finnmeccanica decided after much bickering amongst one another that they would rather not.

The consortium got bogged down about choosing an acceptable managing director for the project, about where to locate ground stations, but most importantly, how and whether they could make money out of the project. Many argued that the handset and receiver makers and even the companies providing the SoC's and baseband processors would -- and will -- be the ones to benefit, and they were not on board as regards up front risks.

That, of course, is not the case, since many European based chip and receiver makers and software companies have invested hugely in designing and developing the components and systems to make Galileo work on the ground.

The folks in the U.S. looking to extend the current and only satellite navigation system up and running, the GPS controlled by the Department of Defense, and the Russian and Chinese consortia building their own versions, will be both laughing their heads off today and ringing their hands about opportunities missed and ready to be grasped.

Galileo is already well behind schedule, and latest in-fighting will only stretch the delays further.

True, all the others are also publicly financed, but the European made a great play of the fact that they could do things differently, bring the private sector on board to share the costs and returns. Now they are having to eat their plans and words.

It is laughable that, at this stage, the spokesman for the EC directorate general for transport should be arguing that the latest proposal represents better value for money in the long term for European taxpayers. Yesterday, he likened the different options to the difference between leasing a car and buying one. If that is really the case, why was the fully government funded option not chosen five years ago when the project got off the drawing board.

Though few are using the word, the Galileo project seems to be at a tipping, if not crisis point. And there is no guarantee that European transport ministers will accept the Commission's latest plans when they meet next month.

Despite its technical advantages over the competing systems, Galileo, and European collaboration, is in danger of being lost in space.