2 Europe navigation satellites in the wrong orbits PARIS (AP) — European space officials say they’re investigating whether the inaccurate deployment of two satellites will complicate their efforts to develop a new Galileo satellite navigation system that would rival America’s GPS network. The European Space Agency and launch company Arianespace say the satellites ended up in off-target orbits after being launched Friday from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Soyuz rocket. Saturday’s agency statement did not explain the difference between the satellites’ intended orbits and its current ones, nor whether their orbital paths could be corrected. Arianespace said they settled into an orbit lower than intended. The European Union hopes to have its 30-satellite Galileo navigation network operating fully by 2020. The Prague-based program oversaw the launch of its first two satellites in 2011, two more in 2012, and two more Friday. Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the French space agency CNES, said the investigation still needed to determine precisely how far off course the satellites were. He said European Space Agency experts in Toulouse, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, were calculating whether small motors inside the satellites would be strong enough to push them into the correct orbit. Le Gall told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that [...] newsinca/2-europe-navigation-satellites-in-the-wrong-orbits-2/
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 22:15:29 +0000
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