Arianespace's Starsem
Affiliate Successfully Launches GIOVE-B For The European Galileo Navigation
System
(27 April 2008) The 21st commercial
flight performed by Arianespace's Starsem affiliate orbited the GIOVE-B payload
today, reconfirming its Soyuz launcher's capability to deploy a constellation
of satellites for the newest space-based navigation network - Europe's Galileo
system.
Lifting off on schedule from Kazakhstan's Baikonur
Cosmodrome at 4:16 a.m. local time, the Soyuz flew a multi-phase mission that
led to GIOVE-B's separation 3 hrs., 45 min. later.
The Soyuz launcher's engines are throttled up for lift-off from Baikonur Cosmodrome with the GIOVE-B navigation satellite. (courtesy: ESA - S. Corvaja)
GIOVE-B is the second developmental
satellite launched by Starsem for the Galileo navigation system, following an
on-target Soyuz flight with GIOVE-A in December 2005. The fully-deployed
Galileo constellation will consist of 30 satellites, positioned in Medium Earth
Orbit (MEO) at an altitude of 23,222 km., inclined 56 deg.
Both the
medium-lift Soyuz and heavy-lift Ariane 5 vehicles are poised to play a key
role in launching the Galileo constellation, operating side-by-side from
Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana under Arianespace
management.
"Today's mission with GIOVE-B is a very important success
for Galileo, and it also is a success for Arianespace - which has the two
launch systems that are ready to deploy this new navigation system," said
Jean-Yves Le Gall, the Chairman & CEO of Arianespace and
Starsem.
GIOVE-B was produced by prime contractor EADS Astrium, and
weighed 530 kg. at liftoff. The 0.95 x 0.95 x 2.4-meter cube-shaped spacecraft
was released in MEO after three burns of the Soyuz' Fregat upper
stage.
Galileo is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the
European Space Agency, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global
positioning service under civilian control. It will be interoperable with
America's Global Position System and the Russian GLONASS
network.
(source: Arianespace)
