Inaugural flight

The first contract for the launch of Soyuz ST-B from Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) was signed at the 2009 Paris Air Show by the Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities René Oosterlinck and a CEO of Arianespace Jean-Yves Le Gall. This contract covered 2 launches of two Galileo satellites each.^[23] The contract for the satellites themselves had already been signed by ESA and Galileo Industries in 2006.^[24]

Launch vehicle components shipped from Saint Petersburg first arrived in French Guiana by ship in November 2009.^[25] The Soyuz Launch Site acceptance review took place during the last week of March 2011, leading to the first simulated launch campaign between 29 April and 4 May 2011.^[6][26] The launch site was officially handed over from ESA to the Arianespace on 7 May 2011.^[27]

Assembly of the Soyuz ST-B begun on 12 September 2011 in the Assembly and Testing building, while two Galileo satellites underwent final tests after their arrival from Thales Alenia Space facilities in Italy on 7 and 14 September 2011.^[28] The launch was planned for 20 October 2011, however an anomaly was detected in the pneumatic system responsible for disconnecting the fuel lines from Soyuz third stage, forcing the mission to be postponed for 24 hours. On 21 October 2011, at 10:30 UTC, Soyuz ST-B took off for its inaugural, 3 hour 49 minute, flight,^[29] making it the first time Soyuz was launched outside of the former Soviet Union territory.^[30]

Flight VS09

On 22 August 2014, Arianespace launched the first two Full Operational Capability satellites for the Galileo satellite navigation constellation into medium Earth orbit.^[31] The mission appeared to proceed normally and Arianespace reported the launch to be a success, however analysis of telemetry data provided by ESA and CNES tracking stations showed that the satellites were injected into an incorrect orbit.^[32]

The orbit was determined by the European Space Operations Centre within 3 hours after the separation from launcher, and the satellites were operating normally and under control.^[33] Both satellites were switched to safe mode, pointing at the sun while both ESA/CNES and OHB teams investigated the failure and options for the satellites.^[34]

On 25 August 2014, Arianespace announced the creation of an independent inquiry commission to investigate the anomaly.^[35] On 28 August 2014, details emerged on the events that most likely led to a failure of the Fregat upper stage. At the end of the re-orientation phase the flight control system detected an incorrect angular speed and unsuccessfully attempted to use thrusters to correct the situation. The flight control system did not detect the thruster issue and continued the flight plan with the upper stage oriented in a wrong direction, leaving the satellites in an incorrect orbit.^[36]

In late September 2014, the Roscosmos commission report, quoted by Izvestia, indicated that the Fregat failure was due to a design flaw leading to freezing in one of the hydrazine propellant lines, which was placed alongside a line carrying cold helium used for pressurization of the main propellant tanks. During the long first burn required for Galileo orbital insertion the propellant line was cooled to below the freezing point of hydrazine. Further investigations were focused on the software error and a means to prevent similar failures in future. Izvestia also reported that the failure of flight VS09 caused a serious reaction in Russian government. Oleg Ostapenko, head of Roscosmos, had a "difficult conversation in the (Moscow) White House".^[37][38]

On 7 October 2014, the Independent Inquiry Board announced the conclusions of its investigation, revealing that a proximity of helium and hydrazine feed lines resulted in a thermal bridge that caused an interruption of propellant supply to the thrusters. Ambiguities in the design documents allowing this to happen were a result of not taking into account thermal transfers in the thermal analyses of the stage system design. The Board recommended 3 corrective actions: Revamping thermal analysis, correcting design documents and modification of manufacture, assembly, integration and inspection procedures of the supply lines.^[39]

In November 2014, ESA announced the satellites would perform a total of 15 orbital maneuvers to raise their perigee to 17,339 km. This would reduce the satellites' exposure to the Van Allen radiation belt, reduce the doppler effect, increase satellite visibility from the ground, and allow the satellites to keep their antennas pointed at Earth during perigee. These orbits would repeat the same ground track every 20 days, allowing synchronization with other Galileo satellites which repeat the same ground track every 10 days. Once in their new orbits the satellites could begin in-orbit testing.^[40]

Recovery of the satellites concluded in March 2015, when Galileo-FOC FM2 entered a new orbit, mirrored to the orbit of Galileo-FOC FM1, which concluded its manoeuvres on the end of November 2014 and successfully passed testing. Currently satellites overfly the same location on the ground every 20 days, comparing to 10 days of standard Galileo satellites.^[41]

Missions

Launch sequence

Typically, operations 3 days before launch include countdown rehearsal for all stages as well as final preparations and verification of the Fregat upper stage. Two days before launch preparations for fueling begin. This is also the last day when pre-launch activity with the payload can occur.^[68] The launch sequence is optimized for each mission, the sequence described here is based on flight VS07 which lifted the Sentinel-1A satellite:^[19][69]