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Russia orbited two European navigation satellites.
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On October 12, 2012 at 18:15 UTC the Russian "Soyuz-ST-B” rocket- carrier was launched from Kourou space center in French Guiana. The rocket equipped with the "Fregat-MT” booster orbited two Galileo-IOV (In-Orbit Validation) communications satellites. The satellites are the third and fourth in global navigation satellite system Galileo, the European analogue of the US GPS, which is set to eventually expand to 30 satellites, including 27 operational ones and three spares. The first two satellites were put in orbit in 2011 on board a Soyuz carrier rocket. Galileo is expected to be in full service by 2020, and could become partially operational by 2015.
