Tag Archives: European Space Agency

European Space Agency (ESA)

Guiana Space Centre – The site

The Guiana Space Centre or, more commonly, Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport as it fulfills the two major geographical requirements of such a site:

CSG site

  • it is near the equator, so that less energy is required to maneuver a spacecraft into an equatorial, geostationary orbit
  • it has open sea to the east, so that lower stages of rockets and debris from launch failures cannot fall on human habitations.

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Galileo service interruption for Ground Segment Upgrade

Galileo’s navigation messages have been recently stopped, in order to enable the migration of a new release for Galileo’s world-spanning ground mission segment (GMS).

Galileo Mission Segment Operators

Galileo Mission Segment Operators

Although the actual navigation signals will continue to be transmitted, the generation and uplink of the navigation message – which renews the contents of the signal – was interrupted this monday and will last for about five weeks. Read more…

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First position fix with Galileo satellite-5

Galileo’s fifth satellite (FOC), recently recovered from the wrong orbit, has been combined with three predecessors (IOV) to provide its first position fix.

Galileo fix using fifth satellite

Galileo fix using fifth satellite

Test receivers at ESA’s technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and at the Galileo In-Orbit Test station at Redu in Belgium received the signals at 12:48 GMT on 9 December from the quartet of satellites and fixed their horizontal positions to better than 2 m. This achievement is particularly significant because the fifth satellite is the first of a new design of 22 Galileos set to be launched over the next few years. Read more…

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Galileo Sat-5 recovered and transmitting Navigation signals

Europe’s fifth Galileo satellite, one of two delivered into a wrong orbit by VS09 Soyuz-Fregat launcher in August, has transmitted its first navigation signal in space on Saturday 29 November 2014. It has reached its new target orbit and its navigation payload has been successfully switched on.

A detailed test campaign is under way now the satellite has reached a more suitable orbit for navigation purposes. Read more…

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Independent Inquiry Board Conclusions on 22-Aug. FOC Galileo launch

The Independent Inquiry Board formed to analyze the causes of the anomaly occurring during the orbital injection of satellites in the Galileo constellation by a Soyuz rocket launched from the Guiana Space Center on August 22 announced its definitive conclusions on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 following a meeting at Arianespace headquarters in Evry, near Paris. Read more…

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Galileo FOC satellites launch failure conclusions

On Aug. 22 the first two Galileo FOC satellites launched by Soyuz-STB Fregat-MT rocket were placed into the wrong orbit (https://galileognss.eu/galileo-foc-fm1-and-fm2-status-update/). European government officials said that the hydrazine fuel line was installed too close to a supercold helium line on the Fregat upper stage.

The installation caused the hydrazine to freeze long enough to upset the Fregat stage’s orientation and cause the two satellites’ release into an orbit that is both too low and in the wrong inclination, officials said. Read more…

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Galileo-FOC FM1 and FM2 status update

Doresa and Milena, the fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, have been in a safe state since 28 August, fully under control from ESA’s centre in Darmstadt, Germany, despite having been released on 22 August into lower and elliptical orbits instead of the expected circular orbits.

The potential of exploiting the satellites to maximum advantage, despite their unplanned injection orbits and within the limited propulsion capabilities, is being investigated. Read more…

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