Two satellites of the Galileo project were launched into orbit yesterday, when it was afternoon in Europe, from the spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, using a Soyuz ST-B rocket with a Fregat upper stage. The two satellites are part of the system alternative to GPS made ​​by the European Union. It took nearly four hours before they separated from the Fregat stage and entered into orbit. Initially it seemed that everything went fine but after a few hours anomalies were detected in the satellites orbits with consequences yet to be assessed.

The first four satellites of the Galileo system had already been put into orbit in October 2011 and October 2012 and four is the minimum number for a constellation and to test the system. These new satellites and the next ones start the Full Operational Capability stage with which the various services available will be offered.

The Galileo system is designed to be very sophisticated, not only for the precision in the localization but also for the additional services that make it superior to the GPS. The SAR (Search and Rescue Support Service) service greatly enhance the performance of the COSPAS-SARSAT system to rescue people in danger. It will allow two-way communications so that people asking for the rescue will receive a confirmation signal and know that someone is coming to help them.

The validation phase (In-Orbit Validation, IOV) of the Galileo system took a long time but it was a new system that was to be tested properly and especially one of the satellites had some technical problems. Only after that it was verified that it worked properly, it was possible to approve the start of satellite launches with the final design.

Now the Full Operational Capability (FOC) phase is supposed to start at last. A series of satellites that will add up to the Galileo constellation are scheduled for launch for a total of 30 of them on three different orbital planes at an altitude of about 23,522 km, in a medium earth orbit. The satellites will be distributed equally so for each orbital plane there will be 9 operational satellites plus a spare one ready to take over in the event of a malfunction of one of the others.

The Galileo project is important for the European Union because it makes it independent from the GPS system, which is controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense, is very sophisticated and includes commercial pay services. In recent years, there were tensions between the EU and the USA because of the strategic importance of this type of systems.

For some of the next launches a version of the Ariane 5 ES rocket is scheduled to be used, able to launch four Galileo satellites at a time. It takes at least 18 to be able to provide all the services of the phase of the Full Operational Capability phase. The next launch is scheduled for December 2014.

There were already several delays in the early launches, now first of all it will be necessary to assess the problem of the orbit of these two satellites, whose inclination was measured in the last hours in 49.69° instead of the programmed 55.04°. The satellites may still be usable and they’ll need to figure out if they can correct their orbits using their thrusters. It’s not a good start for the new phase of the Galileo project but its continuation depends on the consequences.

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