Rocket blasts off with Galileo sat-nav satellites

A Soyuz rocket carrying two satellites that will make up part of a new European sat-nav system has blasted off from French Guiana.

The Galileo project promises great accuracy in locating where we or objects are on the planet and could have a profound effect on how we live our lives, says the European Commission which is funding the new system.

So far, we have used the US GPS (Global Positioning System) which is accurate up to a few metres. Galileo has the potential to offer accuracies below one metre.

Commentary provided by the European Space Agency.