France gives for lost two operational Galileo satellites – El Periódico de Aragón

The first two operational Galileo satellites, the European geospatial navigation system, are in the wrong orbit and therefore may not meet its goal, as admitted Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman of the National Research Center Spatial (CNES) of France and project representative. Le Gall acknowledged that Doresa Milena mills and may not be used for satellite navigation system if you contact them be from Earth.

The exastronauta and CNES president admitted in an interview with the French magazine Usine Nouvelle , the devices are not recoverable for navigation because its orbit “is not circular, as it should have been and, therefore, can not be used in the Galileo system. ”

The clarity of Le Gall contrasts with the official position of the European Space Agency (ESA), which has ruled in a more prudent manner on the possible use of the satellites after last Friday it was confirmed they had been placed in the wrong orbit. What I expected Jean-Yves Le Gall is that the two spacecraft can be used to perform “tests orbit and to validate its operation.”

MISSING PULSE President of the French space center associates this “production error” to the problems that ultimately must face the Russian space industry. Le Gall believes that it is likely that the orbit error has occurred because the Soyuz spacecraft did not give the necessary impetus to satellites and went the wrong way. The head of CNES attributed the “dysfunction” to a malfunction of the device called Fregat, charge injection. Upon notification of the error, a commission of inquiry which will release its findings on September 8 and will then determine “whether it is a badly written or defective equipment element” is created, added Le Gall.

The head of the CNES, indicated that, although ultimately the consequences the incident may be “limited”, the detected error may be a delay in the following satellite launches as scheduled for next month December.

For this reason, reiterated that in order to continue with the program is necessary to know how long before the reasons for the failure. The navigation system Galileo satellite will consist of 24 satellites, six of which will be spare. Each costs 40 million euros, to which must be added another 60 million Soyuz rocket.