Galileo satellite launch date is pushed back as teams probe for causes of on-board computer breakdown
Three technical teams are investigating failure of the on-board computer during thermal vacuum tests of the European Space Agency’s Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE)-B navigation satellite. Teams from European joint venture Galileo Industries, the spacecraft’s supplier, as well as ESA’s technical directorate and an independent group are expected to report back in a few weeks.
The failure at joint-venture partner Alcatel Alenia Space Italy means GIOVE-B, the second test spacecraft for Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system, will now be launched in the second or third quarter of 2007.
The satellite was to have been launched last April. Despite the delay, ESA says its plan to launch the remaining four validation spacecraft, the first satellites in the Galileo operational constellation, will not be affected.
“[The teams] will report in a few weeks and after that we will see what happens,” says ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain. A new launch date for GIOVE-B will be announced as soon as the failure is understood and the programmatic impact assessed.
The first test spacecraft, GIOVE-A built by the UK’s Surrey Satellite Technology, was launched in December 2005, broadcasting navigational signals by the June deadline required to secure the frequencies allocated to Galileo by the International Telecommunications Union. GIOVE-A is also obtaining data on the medium Earth-orbit environment in which the Galileo constellation will operate.
Dordain, meanwhile, expects the agency to agree within the next few weeks the exact contributions member states will make to the proposed two-year crew transport system preparatory study to be undertaken by ESA and Russia’s Federal Space Agency. Previously sources suggested a mid-September agreement on contributions, but Dordain says the delay is not due to member-state hesitancy and insists there are no questions about the objectives of the study.
Source: Flight International
