Yesterday, four more Galileo satellites were successfully launched from the European spaceport in French Guiana on the European launcher Ariane-5. One of them was named after Samuel Petrík from the town of Partizánske. The Vice-President of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič keeps him in his memories:
I had the opportunity to meet Samuel as a young boy during the Galileo exhibition in Bratislava. I´ve heard that nowadays he is already a young man preparing himself for his leaving examination. This time aspect confirms the sustainability of the project and I am happy that one of the satellites will have the name of one young Slovak man.
Seven years ago, ten-year-old Samuel Petrík painted a picture with space objects, rockets and satellites as well as a Slovak astronaut with a child's face on it. The Slovak jury declared Samuel's illustration the best out of 764 other works. Further, Samuel Petrík designed at that time the nicest model of the Galileo satellite, too.
In 2011, two satellites called Natalia and Thijs left the earth, named after the winners of a similar painting competition in Bulgaria and Belgium. Some other names have been already published too: the Greek Anastasia, Dutch Tijmen, Slovene Tara and Estonian Milena.
Galileo is a civilian system which provides accurate positioning and timing information. The Vice-President of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič stressed the fact that the satellites are of a new generation:
We are very proud that we managed to launch a new generation of satellites into space, enabling us a level of localization accuracy several times higher than now. Currently we are receiving information from the US GPS system. The accuracy here lies somewhere at around ten meters. The Galileo satellites should be able to localize up to 20 centimeters.
Maroš Šefčovič added that this fact might help for instance people with vision problems, as various European start-ups should be working on navigation mobile phone apps while deploying the newest technology stemming from the space satellites.
Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, who led the European Commission delegation to Kourou in French Guiana said: "Europe has become a true space power. Today we can say - we made it. But work and investment will continue under the new EU Space Programme."
