AFP/Paris
Foul weather has delayed the blast-off of two satellites for the Galileo navigation network, launch firm Arianespace said on Thursday, as it announced 12 more launches starting next year to "step up" deployment of Europe's rival to GPS.
The liftoff of the fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, already delayed by more than a year, had been scheduled at 1231 GMT Thursday from the European space centre at Kourou in French Guiana on a Russian-made Soyuz rocket on Thursday.
But "unfavourable" weather intervened to cause an indefinite delay, Arianespace said in a statement.
"Another launch date will be decided depending on the evolution of the weather conditions in Kourou," it said.
Arianespace also announced it had signed a deal with the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch 12 more satellites "from 2015 onwards", for the EU-funded Galileo network.
The staggered launches aboard dedicated Ariane 5 ES rockets would "step up the deployment" of the navigation system, the company said, without specifying over what period they would happen.
The 5.4-billion-euro ($7.2-billion) Galileo constellation is designed to provide an alternative in case of signal failure on the existing US Global Positioning System and Russia's Glonass, and will have search and rescue capabilities.
Four satellites have been launched to date -- the first pair in October 2011 and the second a year later. It will ultimately comprise 27 satellites and three reserves.
The previous delay in the launches of orbiters dubbed SAT 5 and SAT 6 had been chalked up to what ESA has described as "technical difficulties in the setting up of the production line and test tools".
ESA has previously said that 18 satellites should be able to provide initial navigation services to users "by mid-decade", with full services from the complete 30-part constellation "scheduled for the decade's end".
In March last year, the ESA said Galileo's first four test satellites had passed a milestone by pinpointing their first ground location, with an accuracy of between 10 and 15 metres (32 to 49 feet).
