Setback for
European-run navigational network as space agency announces satellites missed
their target positions
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| A Soyuz rocket launches from French Guiana on its way to putting Europe’s fifth and six Galileo satellites into the wrong orbit. Photograph: ESA/Arianespace/EPA |
Two
satellites meant to form part of a European-run GPS navigational network have
been launched into the wrong orbit in a blow for the programme.
European
space officials say they are investigating whether the inaccurate deployment
will complicate their efforts to develop the Galileo system, which would rival
the American-run GPS network.
The
European Space Agency and launch company Arianespace said the satellites –
meant to be the fifth and sixth in the network – ended up in off-target orbits
after being launched on Friday from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Soyuz
rocket.
Saturday’s
agency statement did not explain whether their orbital paths could be
corrected.
Arianespace
said the satellites settled into a lower elliptical orbit instead of the
circular one intended, and initial analysis suggested the mishap occurred
during the flight phase and involved the Fregat upper stage of Soyuz.
“Our aim is
of course to fully understand this anomaly,” said Stephane Israel, Arianespace
chairman and chief executive. “While it is too early to determine the exact
causes, we would like to offer our sincere excuses to ESA and the European
commission for this orbital injection that did not meet expectations.”
Israel said
Arianespace along with customer ESA and the commission would create an
independent panel to investigate what caused the inaccurate deployment and to
develop corrective actions so Soyuz launches could resume.
The
European Union hopes to have its 30-satellite Galileo navigation network
operating fully by 2020. The Prague-based programme oversaw the launch of its
first two satellites in 2011, two more in 2012 and the two that went up on
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 ESA 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
said the investigation would take “several days to understand what has
happened. And then we’ll see about the possible consequences on the launch
calendar,” he said, referring to plans to launch more satellites in coming
months.
He called
the Galileo navigation network “a very complex programme, and even if we have
some failures that’s unfortunately part of the life of operations.”
If the two
satellites cannot be pushed to the correct altitude above the earth, he said,
subsequent satellites would have to take up the slack.
The
programme has faced other delays and operational hiccups. ESA officials said on
Wednesday that they had to reduce the strength of another Galileo satellite’s
signal because of unspecified problems.
The agency
says it hopes Galileo will provide greater precision for satellite navigation
systems than the GPS system already used worldwide to pinpoint locations and
plot routes.
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