Soyuz's Galileo Launch Failure Spawns Three Investigations

摘要

A government-industry board of inquiry into the Aug. 22 failure of a Europeanized Russian Soyuz rocket to correctly orbit two European Galileo navigation satellites is scheduled to present its initial results Sept. 8 after a 12-day investigation. The eight-member committee, established by the European Space Agency and launch service provider Arianespace, is one of three separate analyses - the others are by the European Commission and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos - into why the Soyuz rocket's Fregat upper stage completed an apparently flawless mission by releasing the satellites so far off target.