Russia's Soyuz ready to launch Galileo, Europe's $5.4bn rival to US GPS

PRESTIGE and a multibillion-dollar gamble in satellite navigation will be riding on a Soyuz rocket on Thursday. 
 
The Soviet-era workhorse launches from Europe's space base in South America in the first time the rocket, which traces its lineage to Sputnik and Gagarin, has been deployed outside Russia's bases.

And its payload will be the first two operational satellites in Galileo, Europe's 5.4 billion-euro rival to the US global positioning system.

Soyuz is the world's most successful rocket, with 1776 launches under its belt if the count includes forerunners dating back to 1957. There have been only 99 failures, yielding a success rate of 94.4 per cent.  Read More