From Kourou in 2014 scheduled four missile launch system "Soyuz" - ITAR-TASS

Ekaterinburg, December 20. / Correspondent. ITAR-TASS Yuri Ganin /. From Kourou in French Guiana in 2014 scheduled four missile launch system “Union” – 19 December from Baikonur this rocket was launched “Soyuz-ST” with the European telescope “Gaia.” This correspondent. ITAR-TASS said the general director of automation / control system produces rocket / Leonid Shalimov.

Start “Soyuz-ST” experts tracked live. One of the offices of NGOs in Yekaterinburg was connected communication systems with the launch pad. In the tense silence specialists for about 10 minutes / so much time you need to enter the orbit / streaming magic for the layman phrase “minute readiness,” “key to start”, “ten seconds – normal flight” … On a huge screen containing information about the phases of flight. At the moment when the rocket separated from the third stage, there was applause.

problems whose solutions provided NPOA is made, but the overall goal has not been reached, said Shalimov. “We can not start to consider piecemeal. Customer is important to deliver their cargo to the specified point and therefore we are currently experiencing in their colleagues, who continue to lead the headunit “- said Shalimov, noting that the Lagrange point the telescope to fly about one million kilometers.

According to him just this year was scheduled to start four Kourou, but in reality turned out only two. “Next year is also the start of a scheduled four. Will implement them all – it depends on many factors, including the availability of the payload “- said Shalimov.

rocket “Soyuz-ST” upper stage “Fregat-MT” and the European Space Telescope, “Gaia” was launched on December 19 from Kourou in French Guiana. Running successfully performed at 06:12 local time / 13:12 MSK /. “Gaia” made by “EADS Astrium” / EADS Astrium / ESA commissioned. His estimated time of work in space – 5 years. The telescope is designed to produce three-dimensional maps of the distribution of stars in our galaxy. It is assumed that with a telescope scientists discover about 10 thousand exoplanets.