October take off for Galileo satellites

The launch of the first two operational satellites of the EU's global navigation satellite system will take place on 20 October, the European Commission has announced. This is just the first of a series of launches due to take off from Europe's Space Port in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch of the Galileo satellites at an altitude of 23,600km will lead to the provision of initial satellite navigation services in 2014. Successive launches will complete the constellation by 2019.
May 16, 2012 Read time: 1 min
The launch of the first two operational satellites of the EU's global navigation satellite system will take place on 20 October, the 1690 European Commission has announced. This is just the first of a series of launches due to take off from Europe's Space Port in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch of the Galileo satellites at an altitude of 23,600km will lead to the provision of initial satellite navigation services in 2014. Successive launches will complete the constellation by 2019.

The decision to fix the date of the first launch follows a detailed assessment review under the chairmanship of the European Space Agency. It concluded that the space and ground segment components as well as operational preparedness are progressing according to schedule.
Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Co-operative infrastructure reduces congestion, increases safety
    January 30, 2012
    ITS Japan's Chairman Hiroyuki Watanabe talks to ITS International about his country's progress with cooperative infrastructures and how the experience gained to date can benefit similar initiatives elsewhere. Japan gave the rest of the world a taste of the cooperative infrastructure future when, in 1996, it went live with the Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS). Designed to provide real-time traffic information and alerts to in-vehicle navigation systems with the dual aims of increasing safe
    Read More
  • Preventing connected vehicles creating disconnected drivers
    November 12, 2015
    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are evolving at a rapid pace – but drivers’ ability to cope with them is not and at some point the mismatch must be addressed. Probably the biggest challenge the transportation industry has ever faced.” That is how Dr Bryan Reimer of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab describes the challenges posed by semi-autonomous vehicles.
    Read More
  • US DOTs introduce measures to stop wrong-way driving
    March 28, 2018
    Wrong-way driving (WWD) is a remarkably innocuous term for incidents that all too often cause some of the worst accidents that emergency services have to deal with. Several US states are now taking steps to minimise the problem, as Alan Dron finds out. You’re driving down a highway at night when you see approaching headlights. You initially assume they are merely those of an oncoming car on the opposite carriageway. It’s only when they are within 200 yards or so that you realise that the other driver is in
    Read More
  • CEF funds to be used for EFSI ‘only as a last resort’
    April 17, 2015
    Parts of the European Commission’s proposals for the European Fund for Strategic Investments, which foresee the reallocation of US$3.5 billion from the Connecting Europe Facility to provide a part of the US$17 billion for the guarantee fund should be deleted, Transport MEPs suggested in their opinion approved on Tuesday. This target amount should instead be met by gradual budgetary commitments to the guarantee fund to be decided in the frame of the annual budgetary procedure, they add. Instead of cuttin
    Read More

Highlighted Content