Russia's Soyuz ready to launch Galileo, Europe's $5.4bn rival to US GPS

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

A better GPS system - but only for Europe? Interesting to see Soyuz launched outside of the old USSR boundaries for the first time.

PRESTIGE and a multibillion-dollar gamble in satellite navigation will be riding on a Soyuz rocket on Thursday.

The Soviet-era workhorse launches from Europe's space base in South America in the first time the rocket, which traces its lineage to Sputnik and Gagarin, has been deployed outside Russia's bases. Its payload will be the first two operational satellites in Galileo, Europe's 5.4 billion-euro rival to the US global positioning system.

Soyuz is the world's most successful rocket, with 1776 launches under its belt if the count includes forerunners dating back to 1957. There have been only 99 failures, yielding a success rate of 94.4 per cent. Until now, Soyuz has been launched from Plesetsk, in northern Russia, or from Baikonur, in Kazakhstan. Under a 2003 deal, Russia agreed to launch it from the European Space Agency's base in Kourou, French Guiana.

By launching its treasured child abroad, Russia gained precious income for its beleaguered space industry. In exchange, Arianespace, which markets the ESA's rockets for satellite launches, got a medium-range vehicle to go alongside the heavy Ariane 5, and a future lightweight rocket, the Vega.
"I have been pursuing this project for more than a decade. Now we really are in the home stretch," Arianespace boss Jean-Yves Le Gall said.

Ultimately, "Arianespace will be the only operator in the world that will be able to launch any satellite, from the smallest to the biggest, and place it any orbit," he said. A site has been specially built for Soyuz 12km from the Ariane launchpad.

As a symbol of this unprecedented co-operation, it incorporates a rock brought from the Baikonur pad whence Yuri Gagarin made the first human space flight in 1961. The infrastructure includes a 45m-high gantry to enable Soyuz launches. The site can be adapted for human spaceflight if need be, a noteworthy addition after the US shuttle's phaseout earlier this year.
The "Kourou" Soyuz has been given the designation Soyuz STK.

A spin-off of the Soyuz 2, it will use the Fregat upper stage and the ST nose cone, along with several minor modifications to make it compatible with ESA equipment. Thursday's payload is as prestigious as it is valuable.
The European Union says Galileo will be far more accurate than the GPS and offer better coverage in cities, where sat-nav signals can be masked by buildings. Above all, it means the world's biggest trade bloc will not have to depend on a foreign power for what is now an essential economic tool.
The first two Galileo satellites have been named Natalia and Thijs, after a nine-year-old Bulgarian girl and an 11-year-old Belgian boy, who won a drawing competition among European youngsters.

Liftoff is set for 7.34am (21.34 AEDT) on Thursday.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...#ixzz1azDfuVok

[TrevorW]

For their sake it better not expode on launch

[gary]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

A better GPS system - but only for Europe?

Though designed and implemented by the European Union and a few other
countries such as South Korea and Israel, Galileo is a global system and eventually
the constellation will consist of at least 22 satellites. They may increase that number subject
to EU budget approval.

In the industry, satellite navigation systems are generically referred to as GNSS -
Global Navigation Satellite Systems - of which the United States built NAVSTAR
GPS is one such system. However, since the GPS constellation is the one with which
most of us are familiar, the term "GPS" tends to be used by many in a generic
sense in much the same way that the brand name "Hoover" has become
synonymous with the "vacuum cleaner" or "the act of vacuum cleaning" in the UK.

The Russian GLOSNASS GNSS achieved global coverage this month and the
Chinese have been building their COMPASS system.

After much "toing and froing", it was decided that the Galileo system would
use a different set of frequencies to NAVSTAR GPS. However, in the years
ahead it will become increasingly common to see receivers support multiple
constellations which result in benefits to end users such as faster times
to "first fix". As many readers will be aware, a fix on at least three satellites is
required and at least a fourth if elevation is also required.

One of the neat features of Galileo is that it will have a "back-channel" providing a
search and rescue (SAR) capability, similar to an EPIRB.

For a cool time lapse video showing the the final assembly of the Soyuz,
see the ESA web site here - http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Galileo_IOV/

For some links to earlier stories on the Galileo Soyuz launch see this post here -
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=78593

Meantime, huge controversy continues over the U.S. LightSquared 4G LTE wireless
broadband plans where testing has concluded that it would result in major
interference to existing GPS and Galileo receivers. It has been reported that one of
LightSquare's proposals is to retrofit every GPS receiver in the U.S. with a
filter, including over 300 million GPS-enabled cell phones (all new cell phones
must have a positioning capability by law). Earlier this year it had been suggested that
aircraft, to avoid interference to their navigational equipment, would need to fly
around the 40,000 fixed LightSquared ground stations that would be scattered across
the United States.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Thanks for the clarification Gary.

See you tonight.

[gary]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

Thanks for the clarification Gary.

See you tonight.

Thanks Chris,

Looking forward to seeing you tonight at the MAS forum.

Best Regards

Gary

[ZeroID (Brent)]

I thought the Galileo System had already crashed. It is way off schedule and way over budget and at one time about to be abandoned if I remember correctly. Someone must have found a few dollars to keep it alive.