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The Galileo satellite during testing at Thales Alenia Space in Rome during May 2011. Bild: ESA /S. Corvaja, 2011
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Two Galileo Satellites now in Orbit
The first two fully functioning Galileo satellites now orbit the Earth in about 23,222 kilometres height. They departed from the Guiana Space Centre spaceport near Kourou in French Guiana on 21 October aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. Thus the building of an independent outer-space European satellite navigation system finally has begun.
Up until 2020 a total of 30 such satellites are to orbit the Earth and provide considerably more precise data for determining one's position on the ground than the American GPS for civilian purposes allows for. Responsible for operation and control of the satellites is the Galileo Control Centre at the Oberpfaffenhofen site of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Building and operation of the system are financed by the European Union.
However, the Galileo system is to also provide data for research purposes, which are collected and evaluated at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. The satellite experts at the GFZ expect in particular more precise measurement data pertaining to the movement of the tectonic plates, which could improve the risk assessment with respect to earthquakes and other natural disasters. The signals transmitted by the Galileo satellites allow also for the measurement of vapour and temperature within the Earth's atmosphere. These data are of high significance both for weather forecasts and for meteorological and climatological research.
The development of the space satellite network will be continued in August 2012, when another two Galileo satellites are brought into orbit. With the then altogether four satellites and their signals, the first position finding based on Galileo data will be made possible. The European satellite system will also be fully interoperable with the American satellite-based navigation system GPS, so that receivers on Earth will be able to use signals from both systems to determine their location.
