21/10/2011. On board a Russian Soyuz rocket loaded with two satellites, the European Space Agency (ESA) today launched the Galileo navigation system, an ambitious aerospace project for civilian use that from 2014 will begin to compete with the American GPS, of military design.
The Soyuz spacecraft, the first in history to take off from French Guiana, placed the satellites, of 700 kilos each, in an orbit of 23,000 meters of altitude.
The launch, which had to be delayed 24 hours the day before due to an anomaly in the last phase of filling fuel tanks with kerosene and liquid oxygen, also represents the awakening of a "new era" in space cooperation between Europe and Russia, said ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain.
"One Soyuz, two Galileo. Three successes for Europe in a single day" and "a dream come true", summarized the former French astronaut in the intervention that followed the applause, hugs and thumbs up that confirmed the success of the mission.
For his part, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov also indicated from Kuru that the Soyuz, a mythical spacecraft that took the pioneering Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, will be able to take off from French Guiana in manned flights in the future, if Europe has the necessary political "will".
"I hope that Galileo will have the same path of success as Glonass," Ivanov added, referring to the Russian satellite navigation system.
The Galileo constellation will involve a total investment of more than 10,000 million euros to have operational the 30 satellites of the system in
2020, although its applications will start working within three years.
The European system will offer services compatible with GPS and Glonass and will be applied in areas such as transport management, health, agriculture and fisheries, as well as less general areas, such as mobility of the elderly or search and rescue operations.
Its benefits will mean a return to the "real economy" of 90,000 million euros in total, explained the vice president of the European Commission, Antonio Tajani, who recalled that "the mother of the project" was the late Spanish vice president of the EC Loyola de Palacio, who died in 2006.
"Loyola de Palacio was a very capable commissioner, fantastic for Spain and for the European Commission" who "worked a lot for this project," said Tajani, who advanced that probably the service center of the Galileo program in Torrejón (Madrid) will be named after the one that was
Spanish Minister of Agriculture.
Tajani, also Commissioner for Industry, also sent a "message to Brussels on the eve of a very important European Council", because "the launch of the first two Galileo satellites proves that Europe can manage large economic programmes".
"If we Europeans can launch a project as important as Galileo we show that we will also be able to overcome the economic crisis, "we can also overcome the economic crisis, "-
the Italian Commissioner stressed.
The EU official added that the Galileo programme entered the good rails after the delays suffered in its origins in 1999, which has meant a saving of 500 million euros.
The correct development of the launch and the launch into orbit of the satellites today erased the disappointment of the scientists displaced to Kuru on the eve for having had to postpone the mission 24 hours, due to an error that the European team informally attributed to the Russian side.
As planned, the rocket took off at 10.30 GMT, without incident, and 3 hours, 49 minutes and 27 seconds later the Fragat capsule, the last
Floor of the spacecraft, placed the satellites in the proper orbit.
The EU Executive will launch today the tender for the construction of the next six or eight satellites of the system, which will have two other satellites in orbit in 2012.
Two years later, it will begin to provide the first services while, in parallel, satellites will continue to be incorporated until the constellation is completed.
Each of them will be named after a child, winner of a drawing competition in each of the Member States of the European Union (EU), because, as Tajani said, "the future of young people lies in industrial participation in space".
Source:abc.es
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