VV18 – Spaceflight Now

“Big relief” as Europe’s Vega rocket returns to service with successful launch

April 29, 2021 Stephen Clark

A European Vega rocket deployed six commercial satellites in orbit, including a new Airbus-built eye-in-the-sky for high-resolution Earth-imaging, on a successful launch from French Guiana on Wednesday night after two of the last three Vega missions failed.

Live coverage: Arianespace launches Vega rocket from French Guiana

April 28, 2021 Stephen Clark

After two of the last three Vega rocket launches ended in failure, Arianespace launched another Vega launcher from French Guiana at 9:50 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0150 GMT Thursday) with Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 3 commercial Earth observation satellite and five secondary payloads.

Vega rocket’s return-to-flight launch set for Wednesday night

April 28, 2021 Stephen Clark

Six satellites are set to ride a light-class European Vega rocket into orbit from French Guiana on Wednesday night, the first Vega launch since a failure last year that officials attributed to human error.

Arianespace targets early 2021 for Vega return-to-flight

December 18, 2020 Stephen Clark

Presenting the results of an inquiry into a European Vega rocket failure last month, officials said Friday that misleading instructions and inadequate preflight checks caused teams to overlook wrongly-installed cables on the launcher’s upper stage steering system. Arianespace aims to resume Vega launches before the end of March.