Galileo satellites, the GPS flop European: the carrier rocket from 100 million … – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published on 24 August 2014 at 19:46.
The last change is the 24 August 2014 at 19:59.

The cycling races on the track are beautiful. Runners pass through one stage elliptical in lanes that are inclined to rise more can descend at speed. For them to calculate the correct trajectory to get there and it is essential to win. This is what has failed us Europeans last Friday when it was officially announced that the first two fully operational satellites of the new Galileo global positioning system, political parties just before the European center of French Guiana, had not been put in the correct orbit by Russian carrier rocket Soyuz, hired at great cost to the must, we are about 100 million to launch. A double major European Russian flop, though, honestly, to put into account, given that errors and problems in the field of space are always minimizzabili but never eliminated.

What has happened? Simple, the rocket had to do as the runner coming up on the track lane in lane all the way to the right at the top, which would have allowed him to let go of the planned orbit two precious and expensive satellites of the European Galileo global positioning , our Gps if we want to go on the concrete as the one we use now is American. The satellites are in a lower orbit seems to 8,000 km on the 23,500 who were the target position, and most importantly the same orbit is tilted with an error of more than 5 degrees, this means a huge amount, without going into complicated reasoning orbital mechanics.

Now the satellites are in orbit safe and under perfect control of the control center Arianespace French, but alas they are on the lane, pardon orbit, wrong. So how do you do and why did this happen? Impossible for the moment to say that now we are studying the dual problem, both because the rocket did not arrive at the correct altitude, can depend on a thousand reasons, whether the two satellites now orbit parked in safe but useless, they can with their means of propulsion, poor, reach the right altitude. It seems difficult at first glance, we hope.

The damage is severe because the two satellites for the time lost, were the first two fully operational, the other four, say operational test, are already in orbit. Galileo provides a constellation of 30 satellites around the globe with projected costs of € 7.2 billion paid directly by the European Commission and not by the sp0aziale, which in this case is the executor of technical and managerial … will be the best existing , since it was born many years after the American one, and even after the Russian equivalent Glonass. Each power now makes its positioning system on Earth to not depend on others, even China, both for military purposes and for the increasing use civilians who have created a real market in full expansion. We as citizens know the GPS because in many cars now is a satellite navigation system, but the uses are endless: aviation and naval security forces, anti-theft systems for loads traveling, recovery and mapping, search and rescue of shipwrecked at sea, monitoring of suspicious vessels in their routes, and the list would be very long.

The list of upcoming launches of Galileo satellites and the hardware is ready ‘is. A break hopefully in a program vital to the security and economy of our continent

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