Posted: Tue, Sep 25, 2007, 1:46 PM ET (1746 GMT)
The launch of the next demonstration satellite for Europe's Galileo satellite system has been postponed until early next year. The GIOVE-B satellite was scheduled for launch late this year or early next year on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. However, that launch has been rescheduled for March 2008 because of scheduling problems with the Soyuz, according to a statement from an Arianespace official provided to the newspaper Financial Times Deutschland. The launch had already experienced a number of delays caused by technical problems with the spacecraft itself. A smaller Galileo demonstrator satellite, GIOVE-A, was successfully launched in late 2005 so that Europe could reserve the frequencies to be used by Galileo.
