Monday night’s blastoff of a Vega rocket from the northern shore of South America dispatched a 2,500-pound Earth imaging satellite for Europe and put on a light show across the tropical spaceport at the edge of the Amazon.
The 98-foot-tall rocket launched at 10:51:58 p.m. local time Monday (0151:58 GMT Tuesday; 9:51:58 p.m. EDT Monday) from the Guiana Space Center. It released the camera-carrying Sentinel 2A environmental satellite into orbit nearly 500 miles above Earth about 55 minutes later.
Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – S. MartinPhoto credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSGPhoto credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – JM GuillonPhoto credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – JM GuillonPhoto credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015Photo credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015
While production of rockets and satellites continues across much of the space industry amid the coronavirus pandemic, engineers at several space companies — including SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and Blue Origin — have started working on medical devices and protective equipment in response to shortages in hospitals across the United States.
The European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, now sailing around the sun on a trajectory away from Earth, was deactivated Tuesday after a nearly 18-month mission testing previously-untried lasers, vacuum enclosures, exotic gold-platinum cubes and micro-thrusters needed for a trio of gravitational wave observatories set for launch in the 2030s.
A hefty European-built satellite destined to broadcast high-definition television to the Middle East and a U.S.-made relay station programmed to serve Latin America and North Atlantic air routes soared into space Thursday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
