Vega C Rocket Takes Off in French Guiana 2 Years After Catastrophic Failure

Article source: "Deux ans après un premier échec, la fusée Vega-C a décollé du Centre spatial de Kourou, en Guyane", AFP, Le Parisien, 06/12/2024.

In a significant boost to the European Space Agency (ESA), the Vega C rocket successfully lifted off on Thursday in Kourou, French Guiana, two years after the failure of its first commercial launch.

The rocket, carrying the Sentinel-1C satellite from the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation project, lifted off without a hitch at 6:20 PM local time (UTC-03:00) in the presence of Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the ESA.

The launch had been delayed by 48 hours due to "additional checks on the electrical connections in the upper stage," according to the ESA, and then by a mechanical issue “preventing the withdrawal of the mobile gantry”.

The satellite, which is designed to monitor the planet, sending back a continuous stream of data to help understand the impacts of climate change, is set to be put into orbit approximately 700 km above the Earth, 1 hour and 43 minutes after liftoff.

Two Difficult Years

This resumption of normal service for the rocket, designed by the Italian aerospace company Avio, brings to an end two years of difficulties following the failure of its first commercial launch in December 2022. That disaster resulted in the loss of two Airbus satellites and the Vega C programme was put on hold.

The decision to resume Vega C missions was taken after a series of successful tests were carried out on the Zefiro-40 engine, which powers the rocket’s second stage. A fault in the Zefiro-40 had been identified as the cause of the 2022 failure, but i t has since been redesigned.

Toni Tolker-Nielsen, the ESA’s Director of Space Transportation, estimates the additional costs for restoring Vega-C to full operation at between 25 and30 million euros. , , covered by the funding approved last year by ESA Member States.

Nine More Launches Planned

He also announced that four Vega C launches are scheduled for next year, with five more planned for 2026. This mission was particularly significant, as Vega C’s predecessor, Vega, has been retired following its final launch in September.

"This is a decisive step, as Europe’s strategic autonomy depends on two pillars: the heavy-lift Ariane 6 and Vega C, which is a smaller vehicle but plays an important role in extending Europe’s space access capabilities," explained Philippe Baptiste, head of the French space research agency, the CNES (Baptiste is now the higher education minister in France, ed.)

Together, Vega-C and Ariane 6 form a pair of complementary independent launch options available to the public institutions of ESA member states. "If you’re moving out of a small studio apartment, you can just rent a van. But if you’re moving out of a large multistorey house, you rent a big lorry. The principle is the same here," said Pierre Lionnet, Research Director at Eurospace, the trade association of Europe’s space industry.

Vega-C is designed to send small satellites into low Earth orbit, while Ariane 6 can either deploy larger satellites into low Earth orbit or smaller satellites into higher orbits. It can also handle satellite constellations.

The second Ariane 6 mission, which is set to deploy a military surveillance satellite, was originally scheduled for late 2024 but has been postponed until mid-February. Space industry professionals have been keen to downplay the importance of this delay.

Translated by Aurélien Aubin, Emeline Guillot and Inès Kramm

Editing by Sam Trainor