EU industry commissioner Antonio Tajani said the launch, from the Kourou spacesport in the European enclave at the northern tip of South America, would take place at 7:00 am local time and the satellites would carry the names of Belgian and Bulgarian children.

Intended to rival the US-built Global Positioning System (GPS) and Chinese and Russian projects, the Galileo programme's costs have risen to 5.4 billion euros ($7.2 billion).

Scheduled to go online in 2014 -- six years later than originally planned -- it envisages an initial constellation of 18 satellites.

Europe wants to end its dependence on the US GPS system in a market the European Commission has said would grow from 130 billion euros in 2010 to 240 billion euros in 2020.

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