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Launching the 'Space Clock', satellite navigation spacecraft Giove-B ("Giove": Italian for "Jupiter")
Images courtesy of BBC News
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Richard Peckham, an engineer at EADS Astrium, explains how the test satellite Giove-B will be launched into space for Europe's global navigation system.
GIOVE, or Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, is the name for two satellites built for the European Space Agency (ESA) to test technology in orbit for the Galileo positioning system.
Giove is the Italian word for "Jupiter". The name was chosen as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, who discovered the first four natural satellites of Jupiter, and later discovered that they could be used as a universal clock to obtain the longitude of a point on the Earth's surface.
The GIOVE satellites are operated by the GIOVE Mission (GIOVE-M) segment in the frame of the risk mitigation for the In Orbit Validation (IOV) of the Galileo positioning system.
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