GIOVE-A , the first European Galileo satellite, was launched successfully today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, by a Starsem Soyuz-Fregat rocket. Following lift-off at 05:19 UTC, the Fregat upper stage performed a series of manoeuvres to reach a circular orbit at an altitude of 23,258 km, inclined at 56 degrees to the Equator, before deploying the satellite at 09:01:39 UTC into its 14-hour medium Earth orbit.

Communications were established by SSTL with the GIOVE-A satellite immediately following separation from the Fregat upper stage. Telemetry received at the SSTL Mission Control Groundstation, in conjunction with the 25-metre tracking antenna at RAL Chilbolten, showed that all on-board systems were performing as expected.

After loading the on-board computer with applications software and rapidly detumbling the satellite, the two solar array panels were successfully deployed and commenced generating power. These initial operations and systems checks went perfectly and were all completed substantially ahead of schedule during today's first orbit. Further systems checks and platform commissioning will continue tomorrow and for several days prior to commencing payload checks supported by the groundstations in KL, Malaysia and Bangalore, India.                        

Whilst recognising that the mission has only just started and that there is still much work to be done and many risks ahead, a delighted SSTL Operations team took a moment after the first orbit to celebrate with the ESA members present the remarkable success of this first day.

         
The 660 kg GIOVE-A satellite, built by SSTL for ESA in just 30 months and 28M Euros, has three mission objectives. First, it will secure use of the frequencies allocated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for the Galileo system. Second, it will demonstrate critical technologies for the navigation payload of future operational Galileo satellites. Third, it will characterise the radiation environment of the orbits planned for the Galileo constellation.

GIOVE-A carries two small European rubidium atomic clocks, each with a stability of 10 nanoseconds per day, and two signal generation units, one able to generate a simple Galileo signal and the other a more representative Galileo signal. These two signals will be broadcast through an L-band phased-array antenna designed to cover all of the visible Earth under the satellite. Two instruments will monitor the types of radiation to which the satellite is exposed during its two year mission. Once the payload is activated, the Galileo signals broadcast by GIOVE-A will be carefully analysed by ground stations to make sure they satisfy the criteria of the ITU filings.