The European Area Company (ESA) launched its ultimate Vega rocket this week, lofting a Sentinel-2C Earth remark satellite tv for pc into orbit. This wraps up 12 years of service and 20 profitable flights for the venerable Vega. The rocket launched a number of well-known missions, together with LISA Pathfinder (2015), the Earth-observing satellites Proba-V (2013), and Aeolus (2018). ESA will now launch most of these payloads on the brand new Vega-C rocket, able to launching heavier payloads at a cheaper price.
Vega’s ultimate launch was on September 5, 2024 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, and ESA mentioned that it was becoming the rocket boosted to orbit one of many Sentinel satellites, as Vega had beforehand launched Sentinel-2A in 2015 and Sentinel-2B in 2017.
Vega was a smaller however highly effective rocket launcher designed to loft smaller science and Earth remark satellites, specializing in launching of satellites into polar orbit. At 30 meters (98 ft) tall the rocket weighs 137 tons on the launch pad. Vega consisted of three solid-propellant powered levels with the a liquid-propellant fourth stage. earlier than the fourth liquid-propellant stage took over to convey satellites to their required orbit. Vega may attain house in simply six minutes.
Vega’s first launch came about in February 2012, conducting a wonderfully executed qualification flight to deploy 9 science cubesats into Earth orbit.
On Vega’s second flight in 2013, a secondary payload adapter referred to as Vespa was added. This offered completely different choices for payload ride-sharing the place a number of satellites could possibly be launched on one rocket. This flight introduced three satellites to orbit — Earth remark satellites, ESA’s Proba-V, Vietnam’s VNREDSat-1A and Estonia’s first satellite tv for pc, the ESTCube-1 know-how demonstrator. All three have been launched into completely different orbits and the complicated mission required 5 upper-stage boosts, with the flight lasting about twice so long as its first launch.
Essentially the most satellites Vega ever launched to orbit was in 2020 when a variant of Vespa was used — referred to as the Small Spacecraft Mission Service — and introduced over 50 satellites directly to orbit.
2015 was Vega’s’ busiest 12 months, launching three ESA missions together with a reentry demonstrator referred to as IXV that show the know-how to launch a automobile to house and return it safely to Earth. In line with ESA, in lower than two hours Vega accelerated IXV to speeds of 27,000 km/h (16,777 mph) at a peak of 412 km (250 miles) earlier than the reentry automobile splashed down within the Atlantic Ocean.
However now ESA is constructing on Vega’s heritage, and the period of Vega-C has already begun. This new rocket accomplished its inaugural flight in July of 2022, placing the primary payload LARES-2 – a scientific mission of the Italian Area Company ASI – into orbit in addition to six analysis CubeSats from France, Italy and Slovenia. ESA mentioned Vega-C will present higher efficiency and better payload functionality because it has two new strong propulsion levels, an uprated fourth stage, a newly designed fairing, and new floor infrastructure.
