15/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Successful launch of third and fourth Galileo satellites. In the night of Friday 12 to Saturday 13 October, two satellites were successfully launched from the Kourou station in French Guiana. They will join in orbit two other satellites already in place to form the constellation of Galileo, the European radio-navigation service. The satellites will now be under the command of the Galileo control centres in Germany and Italy, to be tested for validation of the Galileo services. The director of the Galileo Programme of the European Space Agency, Didier Faivre, said that the “satellites launched will make it possible to complete the trial phase and pave the way for the swift setting in place of the full constellation” (Ed: by the end of 2014, 18 satellites will deliver the initial services). (MD/transl.fl).