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ESA managed to put four new Galileo stalls into orbit around the Earth. Satellites, simply called Galileo 23-26, will contribute to the European civil positioning system of the same name.
The launch took place in the early afternoon, European time, in French Guiana, South America. The four satellites were transported with a Galileo 5 rocket from Arianespace. 3.5 hours after launch, the first pair of satellites was released and the second pair followed 20 minutes later. The four Galileans are now in medium Earth orbit at 22,922 km above sea level. In the coming days, they will be maneuvered to their final orbits around the earth, after which they will be tested for about six months to be ready to contribute to the Galileo positioning network.
The European Space Agency took four years to complete the Galileo 26 satellites orbiting the earth. This completes the second phase of the deployment of Galileo satellites, but there is also a third phase, with twelve other satellites. These will serve as reserves and replacements for older ones from 2011. The third phase will be launched around 2025.
Galileo is the EU's own locating system. The United States has its own GPS network, Russia has Glonass and China BeiDou. Since Galileo is still relatively young, not all smartphones support the network in nature. It is becoming more and more. For example, Apple has been supporting it since the iPhone 6s, Oneplus since the 5th and at Samsung with the Galaxy S8.
Records of the launch of the Ariane rocket – image: ESA
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