"SOYUZ" LAUNCHER STARTED FROM KOUROU SPACE BASE
Ракета "Союз" стартовала с космодрома Куру
Il lanciatore "Soyuz" è partito dalla base spaziale di Kourou
Le lanceur "Soyuz" est parti de la base de Kourou
"Soyuz" Rakete aus Kourou-Basis gestartet
In a moment when the European Union does not enjoy the favour of public opinion precisely because of its apparent weakness in managing the big challenges of the worldwide financial crisis, it can show an important success in its favour: the starting of its earth navigation system "Galileo", the result of a long lasting collaboration between European and Russian authorities, space agencies and private sectors.
This is the first wide-range European joint technological project. The utilisation of the Russian Soyuz launcher increases the value of Europe's achievement, being thus the project a really pan-European one.
This success is still more important in a moment when, because of the refusal, by the US, to share control of the system, the project of a joint NATO-Russian anti-ballistic defence has been abandoned both by USA and Russia.
Happily, joint research between Russia and Europe goes on, even in an area, such as earth satellite navigation, whose defence implications are important. By the way, we note also that, as an alternative to the old proposed joint anti-ballistic defence, Russia is now proposing, also to the USA, a joint space defence.
In any case, ESA, the European Space Agency, is becoming less and less "Franco-centric". Beside the "classical" Ariane launcher, based upon a French ballistic missile, and built by a European consortium where EADS, SAFRAN and Thales are dominant, ESA has now available two "new" launchers, the big Russian Soyuz and the "small" Italian VEGA, built by an Italian-French joint venture in the Colleferro Plant near to the ESA space center of Frascati.
This succes shows how far the European-Russian cooperation is going on in the most strategic industrial areas.
