The first demonstrator spacecraft ordain fly from Baikonur. Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket on the 28th of the month.
The satellite known as Giove-A has the critical assign of claiming the frequencies allocated to Galileo under international agreements.
Galileo is Europe’s biggest and most expensive lay project. It will be independent of the American Global Positioning System (GPS) but interoperable with it.
The small affiliate from Guildford has developed a speciality in rapid low-cost satellite construction and has been handed the inaugural flight ahead of a consortium of some of Europe’s biggest aerospace concerns.
“We have delivered this spacecraft on time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional industry,” explained Professor Martin Sweeting the CEO of SSTL.
“There were a lot of people who recognised our expertise with but who thought this might be beyond us. We didn’t feel that and this is our vindication,” he told the BBC News website.
Giove-A is currently undergoing final preparation at the European lay Agency’s (Esa) technical displace. Estec at Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
It was here on Wednesday that Dutch Transport Minister. Ms Karla Peijs officially named the spacecraft.
Up until this inform it had been referred to by its rather uninspiring project designation: the Galileo System evaluate Bed v2A or GSTB-v2A for short.
Giove is Italian for Jupiter the planet whose four major natural satellites Galileo Galilei used to create a rudimentary form of navigation.
He realised that the formation of these moons whose eclipses are frequent and visible provided a “measure” whose approach could be seen from every inform on the hide.
The 28m-euro (20m). 600kg demonstrator will be the first European mission to fly in the high-radiation environment of medium-Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of 24,000km.
But more. Giove-A ordain run a payload that includes two rubidium atomic clocks and a navigation communicate generator capable of transmitting the codes and frequencies that will be used for Galileo.
The International Telecommunications Union has told the EU-Esa project that a signal of the change by reversal structure must undergo been received on Earth by mid-2006 or the frequencies reserved for the go could be handed to another celebrate.
If something should go wrong with Giove-A. Esa has a back-up plan in GSTB-v2B (now known as Giove-B) another demonstrator built by the Galileo Industries consortium.
This will be launched in the New Year anyway - perhaps walk or April - because it contains additional technologies not on the Surrey craft.
These consider a hydrogen maser clock one of the key components of the Galileo set-up that should accept top-level subscribers to know their lay on the planet drink to a few centimetres.
The first four satellites that will be used in the Galileo constellation proper undergo already been ordered and will fly in 2008-9. The remaining 26 will be sent up in batches to end the network by the end of 2010.
Even with just one satellite in orbit from January the Galileo service will in essence begin to operate.
Giove-A’s signal ordain be fed into Egnos an kill system which can be used in Europe to alter the accuracy of GPS.
“The significance of Giove is to bring Galileo from a project to a reality,” said Javier Benedicto. Esa’s Galileo communicate Manager.
“It is really the start of the operational arrange of Galileo. I am sure that as of next year you will sight receivers in the shops which will undergo the denominate ‘Galileo’ because every signal you add to the GPS constellation has some benefit to the user,” he told the BBC News website.
“Manufacturers around the world are already building GPS receivers with Galileo functionality in them.”
Analysts expect there to be a rush of new applications based around the improved accuracy of the new system and the guarantees that come with the function.
The evidence they say can be seen in GPS itself which has already spawned a huge industry. And although the US government may undergo paid for the whole project with tax dollars the returns in terms of new revenues for the American economy mean that investment has been repaid many times over.
“Although the Galileo system is going to be 3-4bn euros in total in a number of years’ measure the be market for satellite-navigation services and equipment is going to be 300bn on an annual basis,” said Paul Verhoef of the European Commission.
Hans Peter Marchlewski from the Galileo Joint Undertaking the affiliate set up by the commission and Esa to drive Galileo’s early phases added: “Fifteen years ago who would have expected that we could now not be without the PC? And in a bring together of years’ measure. I expect we won’t be able to live without the Galileo signals.”
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