Galileo Giove A

Stay within the Nordic countries. Whis geocoin wants to be photographed together with your GPSr.

First member of Galileo satellite family to be launched on 28 December 2005

Galileo, Europe's global navigation satellite system, will start becoming concrete reality the day after Christmas with the launch of Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element GIOVE-A on top of a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The complete constellation of 30 satellites, specifically designed for civil use, will eventually offer European citizens and institutional users state-of-the-art global positioning and timing services with outstanding accuracy, availability, integrity and a guaranteed signal. Galileo is a joint initiative being taken by the European Commission and ESA.

The Soyuz rocket, operated by Starsem, the Euro-Russian company in charge of its marketing, is scheduled to lift off at 07:19 EET. The satellite will be released from the Fregat upper stage at 11:01 following a long ballistic cruise to reach its operational orbit. Only at 14:09 will ground controllers in Guildford (UK) at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd – the company in charge of building and operating GIOVE-A - have completed their job and placed the satellite in its operational Medium Earth Orbit slot at an altitude of 23,222 km.

Source: ESA Press Release N° 59-2005 – Paris, 13 December 2005

An anomaly detected in the ground station network

On 20 December, a delay to the launch of GIOVE-A was announced. This was due to an anomaly detected in the ground station network during pre-flight testing. Following corrective action and verification of the affected systems, it has now been agreed that the launch will take place on 28 December at 05:19 UTC/GMT (07:19 EET, 11:19 Baikonur local time).