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
A Vega rocket faltered minutes after liftoff from French Guiana at 9:53 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0153 GMT) and failed to reach orbit with a European-built reconnaissance satellite for the United Arab Emirates. The payload and launcher fell into the Atlantic Ocean, marking the first failure for the solid-fueled Vega launch vehicle.
A broadband communications satellite for Paris-based Eutelsat — built on a new Thales Alenia Space all-electric design with xenon plasma thrusters — and an Indian broadcasting spacecraft are fastened to the top of an Ariane 5 launcher for liftoff Thursday from French Guiana.
Riding on its side aboard a rail car, a Proton rocket trekked to its launch pad Tuesday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a Eutelsat television broadcast satellite ready for liftoff Friday.
