The first test satellite of Europe’s €3.8 billion Galileo navigation system was launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The system will rival the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia’s GLONASS system. Galileo is a civilian project and promises the permanent provision of a navigation system – the US and Russia systems are both run by the military and could in theory be turned off at any time.
Wednesday’s launch came after two years of delays. A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the test GIOVE-A satellite blasted off at 0519 GMT. About nine minutes after lift-off, the launcher's first three stages separated as scheduled.
A few hours later mission control officials announced the probe had been successfully placed in its final orbit 23,000 kilometres (14,000 miles) above the Earth. But the mission will only be declared a success when the satellite's solar panels and transmission systems have been successfully tested.
The launch, originally scheduled for Monday, had been delayed by two days after the discovery of anomalies in stations tasked with following the satellite's progress in space.
The GIOVE-A satellite is named after the Italian word for Jupiter, but is also an acronym of Galileo In Orbit Validation Element. It will test various technologies including an atomic clock the European Space Agency says is the most precise ever sent into space.
Strategic independence
Satellite navigation has become indispensable for regulating air, sea and more recently road traffic, and Galileo will give Europe strategic independence from GPS.
But the systems will also complement each other. The US and the European Union reached agreement in 2004 to adopt common operating standards, overcoming US concerns that the Galileo system would compromise its use of GPS, on which the US military is heavily dependent. Galileo will also be compatible with the GLONASS.
According to ESA, Galileo is designed to deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the one metre (one yard). The civilian system will guarantee service under all but the most extreme circumstances and will inform users within seconds of a failure of any satellite.
The project's next phase will be the launch of the GIOVE-B test satellite in 2006, followed by four working satellites by 2008. The ultimate goal remains a constellation of 30 satellites encircling the globe. The date for opening the network to commercial use has been pushed back two years to 2010.
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