{"id":16457,"date":"2015-03-24T18:53:22","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T10:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-soyuz-rocket-transferred-to-jungle-launch-pad\/"},"modified":"2015-03-24T18:53:22","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T10:53:22","slug":"photos-soyuz-rocket-transferred-to-jungle-launch-pad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-soyuz-rocket-transferred-to-jungle-launch-pad\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Soyuz rocket transferred to jungle launch pad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian technicians rolled a Soyuz rocket from its integration hangar to the launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday morning, positioning the booster to receive two Galileo navigation satellites ahead of liftoff Friday.<\/p>\n

The three-stage rocket made the 2,300-foot trip on rail tracks riding a specialized transporter-erector system. The journey began Tuesday after sunrise, and the rocket was lifted vertical over the launch pad\u2019s concrete flame trench by midday.<\/p>\n

Carved out of granite bedrock on the northern coast of South America, the purpose-built Soyuz launch pad sits a few miles northwest from the European-run spaceport\u2019s Ariane 5 and Vega launch facilities.<\/p>\n

The rocket rolled from the integration building \u2014 known by the Russian acronym MIK \u2014 through the launch pad\u2019s mobile gantry, then rotated upright and attached to four hold-down support arms.<\/p>\n

Two Galileo navigation satellites readied for launch on the Soyuz were set to be transferred to the launch pad later Tuesday, already inside the rocket\u2019s ST-type 13.5-foot-diameter payload fairing. The payloads will be lifted into the gantry and bolted atop the Soyuz rocket, followed by a final series of tests before Friday\u2019s countdown.<\/p>\n

Liftoff of the Soyuz ST-B rocket is set for Friday at 2146:18 GMT (5:46:18 p.m. EDT; 6:46:18 p.m. French Guiana time), about six minutes after sunset at the equatorial space base.<\/p>\n

The launcher\u2019s Fregat-MT upper stage will deploy the mission\u2019s two Galileo satellite passengers into a circular orbit about 14,600 miles (23,500 kilometers) above Earth nearly four hours later. The satellites will join Europe\u2019s growing constellation of navigation spacecraft, building out an independent civilian-run counterpart to the U.S. military\u2019s GPS network.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian technicians rolled a Soyuz rocket from its integration hangar to the launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday morning, positioning the booster to receive two Galileo navigation satellites ahead of liftoff Friday. The three-stage rocket made the 2,300-foot trip on rail tracks riding a specialized transporter-erector system. The journey began Tuesday after sunrise, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1763,1397,1773,1302,4101],"class_list":["post-16457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-fregat","tag-galileo","tag-guiana-space-center","tag-soyuz","tag-vs11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}