Europe launches first of GPS satellites - The Boston Globe: "Effort seeks end to dependence on US military system

By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | December 29, 2005

BERLIN -- The European Union yesterday launched the first satellite in its ambitious Galileo global positioning system, directly challenging the American military's dominance over strategically and commercially critical satellite-guided navigational systems.
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''The satellite is up in space and transmitting signals,' said Franco Bonacina, spokesman for the European Space Agency, shortly after the unit hurtled into space atop a Soyuz booster launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Scientists and journalists in Europe monitored the launch on computer linkups through the space agency's headquarters in Paris. The Galileo system"