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New date set for problem-plagued European satellite launch PARIS, Oct 5 (AFP) Oct 05, 2006 A European weather and environment satellite, MetOp-A, whose launch from Russia's space base in Kazakhstan has been delayed four times, will be taken aloft on October 17, the launch operator said on Thursday. "After completion of further checks on the Soyuz launch system, Starsem and its Russian partners, in coordination with Eumetsat and ESA (the European Space Agency), have now scheduled the launch of MetOp-A on Tuesday, October 17," Starsem said in a press release received here. The four-tonne polar-orbiting satellite was to have been launched in July aboard a Soyuz/Fregat rocket from Baikonur. In the latest hitch, the rocket's upper stage received a blow as it was being attached to the lower stage ahead of what should have been the launch this Saturday. MetOp-A is the most complex satellite of its kind, carrying around a dozen instruments for measuring weather patterns and monitoring climate change, ESA says. Its future operator is the European weather satellite consortium, Eumetsat. Two similar satellites are to be launched in coming years. Starsem is a Russian-European venture that markets the launch services of the Soviet-era Soyuz rocket. Eumetsat's website said on Thursday that the launch would take place at 1628 GMT on October 17.
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