September 11, 2015

12th launch success for Soyuz from the Guiana Space Centre : Two new satellites of the Galileo constellation in orbit

Friday 11 September, the Soyuz launcher accomplished its 12th successful flight from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, orbiting two new satellites of the European Galileo constellation. Ultimately, Galileo will offer much greater precision and reliability than existing satellite navigation systems.

For its 12th launch from the Guiana Space Centre, Soyuz launched two new Galileo satellites, the fifth and sixth Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites, following the previous two launched in March. Ultimately, Galileo is set to give Europe an extremely precise, reliable and secure satellite navigation system.

Placed in a circular inclined orbit at an altitude of 23,522 kilometres, the two satellites—each weighing 715 kilograms—are the ninth and tenth satellites in what will be a constellation of 26. Their signals are compatible and interoperable with existing satellite navigation systems, but one of Galileo’s key advantages is that it offers near-metric precision, and that is before the signal is further refined by additional processing.

The full Galileo constellation will comprise 26 satellites to provide unrivalled precision and serve an unprecedented range of applications. The 16 FOC satellites still to be deployed will be orbited by two further Soyuz flights, each carrying two satellites, and three Ariane 5 flights, each carrying four satellites.

After the launch, Jean-Yves Le Gall, CNES President, ESA Co-Chair and interministerial coordinator for European satellite navigation programmes, commented: “For this 12th Soyuz launch from the Guiana Space Centre, I would like to congratulate all of the partner teams working on this fundamental programme for Europe’s space policy: at the European Commission, the European Space Agency, Arianespace, Starsem, European and Russian manufacturers and of course at CNES, whose Guiana Space Centre—one of the agency’s four centres of excellence—performed this launch. This latest success marks a key milestone in the deployment of the Galileo constellation, which when complete will guarantee a precision unequalled by any other satellite navigation system.”


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Contacts
Pascale Bresson    Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39    pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Alain Delrieu    Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04    alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet    Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37    julien.watelet@cnes.fr

cp164-2015_-_succes_vs12_galileo_va.pdf (pdf - 102.15 KB)
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