THE first of a network of 30 satellites that will provide Europe with its own version of the American Global Positioning System (GPS) was launched yesterday.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the Giove A satellite blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5.19am GMT and unloaded its British-built payload into orbit about four hours later.

Giove A will test atomic clocks and signal generators for the £2.3 billion Galileo project, which will give civilian users a satellite navigation and positioning service ten times more accurate than the alternatives available today.

While public signals from the US military GPS have long been available free of charge and are already widely used by sailors, mountaineers and motorists, Galileo is designed to offer significant improvements on the service.

Civilian GPS is accurate to within 10 to 20 metres, which is good enough for in-car navigation systems but useless for more complex applications such as pay-as-you-drive road pricing and air traffic control.

The public GPS signal is relatively weak and in Northern Europe the satellites are often too low in the sky to be seen in built-up areas. The US military also reserves the right to turn off the system at any time.

When the Galileo constellation is complete in 2010 it will be accurate to within a metre and its stronger radio signals will enable receivers to work in high-rise cities and even indoors. The way the 30 satellites are arranged makes the probability of receiving signals from at least four of them — the minimum needed to calculate an accurate position — greater than 90 per cent anywhere in the world.

Coverage in Europe will be virtually total. In most locations six to eight satellites will always be visible, allowing positions to be determined to within a few centimetres.

This will transform the consumer applications of satellite positioning technology, allowing mobile phones with a Galileo chip to receive local weather forecasts and entertainment listings. The system will underpin road-pricing and air traffic control networks, and would make it possible to fit cars with control units that prevent drivers from getting too close to other vehicles.

“We are aiming to provide one-metre, worldwide accuracy through Galileo’s open service — this is not possible today without regional or local augmentation,” said Javier Benedicto, Galileo project manager at the European Space Agency. “With the use of three signals, we will have access to centimetre accuracies, and with these you will see many more services than you have today, and European industry is working to develop those applications.”

The US was originally opposed to the scheme, fearing that its military potential could be exploited by terrorists and hostile states, though it has since agreed to full compatibility with its GPS network.

Galileo is being run by a European consortium that includes the British company Inmarsat and the satellite was built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited. Employees at its Guildford headquarters cheered news of its successful launch yesterday. “Those were a tense few minutes while we waited for the first signals back,” said Max Meerman, director of research at SSTL.

Giove A — it is an acronym of Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, but also means Jupiter in Italian — carries a tribute to a young member of the satellite structural design team, who was killed last year in the Boxing Day tsunami. Tom Fairbairn, 25, is remembered on a plaque attached to the side of the satellite.

FLIGHT PLAN

Galileo chips will allow mobile phone users instant access to local weather forecasts and shopping and entertainment listings