Galileo Constellation: Satellites 9 and 10 launched successfully

Kourou  11 September 2015

Satellites 9 and 10 of the European space programme Galileo were launched successfully at 02:08 GMT (04:08 CET) with a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Two other satellites of the European satellite navigation and localization programme Galileo will be put into orbit by the end of 2015.

Telespazio plays a leading role in Galileo, having built at the Fucino Space Centre one of the two Control Centres which manage the constellation and the programme mission. Through Spaceopal, a company formed as a joint venture with DLR GfR, Telespazio is responsible for the operations and integrated logistics of the entire system, ensuring the management and coordination of the services.

Spaceopal operates through the Galileo Control Centres in Oberpfaffenhofen (Munich) and Fucino (L'Aquila) for the provision of the navigation signals and the in-orbit control of the satellites.

Telespazio France plays an important role during the launch operations through the teams in Toulouse and Kourou. The subsidiary of Telespazio supports the CNES and Arianespace respectively in the management of the launch centre in Guyana and in the operations of launch and early orbit the Galileo satellites.

Telespazio is involved in the validation campaign of the programme's early services and in the implementation of applications based on Galileo, which will encourage the development and dissemination of innovative services in multiple sectors: transport, telecommunications, geodesy, oil exploration and mining.

The Galileo programme is a collaboration of the European Union with ESA to improve the technological independence of Europe and establish international standards for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

The purpose of the programme is to provide a global navigation satellite system, a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service, interoperable with the US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems. At full operation, Galileo will consist of 30 Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites and a broad ground infrastructures.

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