First Galileo satellite travels to launch site

GIOVE A, the first Galileo satellite, departed from ESA’s test facility at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in The Netherlands on the morning of 29 November, bound for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft, packed in its transport container and accompanied by its support equipment, was taken by road from the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where it was loaded onto an Antonov transport plane. GIOVE-A was flown first to Moscow and, after customs formalities had been completed, made the second leg of its air journey to Baikonur, arriving in the early hours of 30 November. It will be placed in orbit by a Soyuz/Fregat launch vehicle, with lift-off scheduled for late December.

GIOVE A is the first of two Galileo In-Orbit Validation Elements, which with its sister spacecraft GIOVE B and their associated ground segment make up the first stage of the in-orbit validation (IOV) of the Galileo system.

Demonstrate the feasibility of broadcasting near-real-time orbit determination and time synchronisation data with high accuracy (uncertainty less than 50 cm), as envisaged for the full Galileo system

Characterise the radiation environment of medium earth orbit that the operational satellites will occupy

GIOVE-A has been developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (UK). Galileo Industries (GaIn) is developing the GIOVE-B satellite. GaIn is a European consortium including Alcatel Alenia Space (F/I), Astrium (D/UK) and Galileo Sistemas y Servicios (E). GIOVE B is undergoing final integration and testing at the Rome facilities of Alcatel Alenia Space, prior to moving to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) for its environmental test campaign. It is due to be launched in 2006.

Experience gained from the GIOVE missions will support the development of the Galileo IOV system. The next phase of Galileo IOV will be the deployment of the first four of 30 fully representative Galileo satellites that will be required for full system operation.

Galileo will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems.

A user will be able to take a position with the same receiver from any of the satellites in any combination. By offering dual frequencies as standard, however, Galileo will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the metre range, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system. It will guarantee availability of the service under all but the most extreme circumstances and will inform users within seconds of a failure of any satellite. This will make it suitable for applications where safety is crucial, such as running trains, guiding cars and landing aircraft.

The first experimental satellite, part of the so-called Galileo System Test Bed (GSTB) will be launched in the second semester of 2005. The objective of this experimental satellite is to characterize the critical technologies, which are already under development under ESA contracts. Thereafter up to four operational satellites will be launched in the timeframe 2005-2006 to validate the basic Galileo space and related ground segment. Once this In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase has been completed, the remaining satellites will be installed to reach the Full Operational Capability (FOC) in 2008.

The launch of a Russian carrier rocket with European navigation satellite on board has been scheduled for December 26 at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency announced on Thursday, 1st December. A Soyuz-FG launch vehicle would take the experimental Galileo satellite into space.

The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares), positioned in three circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) planes in 23616 km altitude above the Earth, and at an inclination of the orbital planes of 56 degrees with reference to the equatorial plane. Once this is achieved, the Galileo navigation signals will provide a good coverage even at latitudes up to 75 degrees north, which corresponds to the North Cape, and beyond. The large number of satellites together with the optimisation of the constellation, and the availability of the three active spare satellites, will ensure that the loss of one satellite has no discernible effect on the user.

Two Galileo Control Centres (GCC) will be implemented on European ground to provide for the control of the satellites and to perform the navigation mission management. The data provided by a global network of twenty Galileo Sensor Stations (GSS) will be sent to the Galileo Control Centres through a redundant communications network. The GCC’s will use the data of the Sensor Stations to compute the integrity information and to synchronize the time signal of all satellites and of the ground station clocks. The exchange of the data between the Control Centres and the satellites will be performed through so-called up-link stations. Five S-band up-link stations and 10 C-band up-link stations will be installed around the globe for this purpose.

1 posted on 12/11/2005 2:12:09 AM PST by Jordi

More accurate navigation by a private agency is a good thing even though the naysayers will attempt to create fear by invoking possible abuses by terrorists.

2 posted on 12/11/2005 4:52:19 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (9-11 is your Peace Dividend)

>More accurate navigation by a private agency is a good thing

Is this really private? I thought it was funded by the EU.

3 posted on 12/11/2005 12:09:34 PM PST by chipengineer

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