“The mission is lost,” said Arianespace president Stéphane Israel on Tuesday, December 20. This new failure is a big setback for the European Space Agency (ESA) while the global competition is raging.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
The new European light launcher Vega-C, which was to make its first commercial flight with two satellites from Airbus on board, was lost after taking off from Kourou, French Guyana, Tuesday, December 20. This failure inflicts a setback on a weakened spatial Europe.
Ten minutes after takeoff, at 10:47 p.m. local time, the launcher’s trajectory deviated from that scheduled, then the Télémesures ceased to arrive at the control room of the Kourou space center.
“The mission is lost,” said Arianespace president Stéphane Israel from the Guyanese space center. “About 2 minutes and 27 seconds after takeoff, an anomaly occurred on the Zefiro 40”, the second floor of the launcher, “putting an end to the Vega-C mission,” said the company responsible for its exploitation in A brief press release.
The rocket had to place two observation satellites in orbit
Arianespace noted that there were no fallout from debris after takeoff of the European launcher, under Italian project management.
“Data analyzes are underway to determine the reasons for this failure,” added Arianespace. A press point is scheduled for Wednesday in Kourou, at noon, local time.
The Vega-C rocket had to place two earth observation satellites built by Airbus, Pléiades Neo 5 and 6, the last two of the Constellation Pleiades Neo, in orbit, having any point of the globe. Several times a day with a resolution of 30 centimeters.
Initially scheduled for November 24, this flight had been pushed by one month due to a defective launcher element. “We had to change equipment related to the cap,” said the France-Presse Stéphane Israel agency. 2>
First commercial flight
It was the first commercial flight of Vega-C after its inaugural launch on July 13, crowned with success, marking the introduction of the new family of European launchers.
vega-c is presented as the little sister of the future Ariane 6, of which she uses common elements to allow Europe to be more competitive in a high expansion satellite market.
“human warmth” How to face the climate challenge? Each week, our best articles on the subject register section>
vega -c – C for “consolidation”, according to its industrial prime contractor, Italian Avio – is an improved version of the light launcher Vega , drawn twenty times since 2012. The latter had suffered two failures: one in November 2020 due to a problem of manufacturing the launcher, fell into the sea after having dislocated in the atmosphere, the other, to the ‘Summer 2019, after a failure that had led to its destruction, as a precaution.
l’ESA, forced to turn to SpaceX
This new failure is a big setback for the European Space Agency (ESA), head of European launcher programs, while global competition rages on the launcher market, with the American SpaceX in mind.
The Ariane 6 rocket is the main engine of the response, but the postponement to the end of 2023 of the inaugural flight initially planned for 2020 has penalized ESA which has twenty-two member states.
Space Europe is also weakened by the invasion of Ukraine, which ended its spatial cooperation with Russia and private the European spatial base of Kourou of satellite launches by Soyuz rockets.
ESA was thus forced to turn to SpaceX to launch two scientific missions.
The launch of Vega-C was the fifth and last of 2022 for the Spatial Port of Europe in Kourou.