Galileo Orbit Anomaly

[Darren]

If you've been following the Galileo orbit issue that arose from last week's launch you'll know that the two Galileo satellites have ended up in the wrong orbit due to an issue at the orbit insertion stage.

Everyone is making positive noises about the issue saying that the satellites are healthy and under full control but the bottom line is that two of these multi-million Euro vehicles are not where they need to be. And worse still, that will leave the network one vehicle short of its full operational capacity.

Whilst Arianespace and the ESA investigate what caused this to happen it seems that most attention is being focussed on the Fregat upper stage, the part of the launch vehicle responsible for placing the satellites in the right position for insertion into their correct orbits.

More detailed discussion of the issues can be found on the Russian Space Web site (in English).

Source: www.RussianSpaceWeb.com

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Darren Griffin

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