{"id":12595,"date":"2020-03-13T17:54:25","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T09:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/italian-maker-of-vega-rocket-says-launch-remains-on-track-for-later-this-month\/"},"modified":"2020-03-13T17:54:25","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T09:54:25","slug":"italian-maker-of-vega-rocket-says-launch-remains-on-track-for-later-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/italian-maker-of-vega-rocket-says-launch-remains-on-track-for-later-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian maker of Vega rocket says launch remains on track for later this month"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Italian-built Zefiro 23 second stage for the next flight of the European Vega rocket is raised into the mobile gantry on a launch pad at the Guiana Space Center in South America. Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 P. Piron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The head of Italian rocket-maker Avio said Thursday that preparations are proceeding without interruption for the launch of a Vega rocket later this month in French Guiana, but officials have adjusted work schedules at the company\u2019s Vega manufacturing plant near Rome in response to the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n

Teams are preparing the Vega rocket for its first flight since a launch failure last July that destroyed a military reconnaissance satellite for the United Arab Emirates. It was the first failure of a Vega rocket in 15 flights since it debuted in 2012.<\/p>\n

The Vega launcher, primarily built in Italy by Avio, is scheduled for liftoff at 9:51 p.m. EDT on March 23 (0151 GMT on March 24) from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America.<\/p>\n

Giulio Ranzo, Avio\u2019s chief executive, said in a phone interview Thursday that preparations for the launch March 23 are continuing on schedule in French Guiana. Ground teams needed to ready the Vega rocket for flight are in place at French-run space base.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team has been gathered in Kourou now starting from two months ago, and the last few guys went last week, so I think we\u2019re all set,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cThe whole team is there. It\u2019s not clear when they will come back, but that\u2019s another story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governments around the world have introduced travel restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and it\u2019s not clear how limits on travel may change in the coming weeks. Italy has been the hardest-hit country in Europe by the COVID-19 viral disease, and the Italian government has locked down travel into and out of the country.<\/p>\n

As of Friday, Italian authorities have reported 1,266 deaths in the country from COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Arianespace, the French launch services provider, oversees Vega launch operations after Avio teams assemble and test the rocket. Arianespace has mission managers and engineers permanently stationed in French Guiana, an isolated coastal French territory between Suriname and Brazil.<\/p>\n

Another Vega launch is scheduled for June from French Guiana, and Ranzo said Avio\u2019s team could start work on the next launch campaign if they remain in French Guiana.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any event, we have another flight coming up next, so we can make use of the people also immediately after this flight,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cSo we will adapt the schedule to what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

French health officials have reported five confirmed COVID-19 cases. Last week, spaceport officials there said the space center\u2019s museum, public tours and public viewing sites for upcoming launches would be closed until further notice.<\/p>\n

The four-stage Vega rocket has been stacked on its launch pad at the Guiana Space Center, and the 44 satellites that will ride the launcher into orbit have been integrated with a multi-payload dispenser for encapsulation inside the Vega\u2019s aerodynamic nose shroud.<\/p>\n

The payload fairing containing the 44 satellites will be raised atop the Vega rocket in the coming days to cap assembly of the 98-foot-tall (30-meter) vehicle.<\/p>\n

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The 44 satellites slated to ride the next Vega rocket into orbit have been stacked onto a multi-payload dispenser in Kourou, French Guiana. Credit: Avio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rideshare mission is the first flight of the Small Spacecraft Mission Service, or SSMS, platform designed to accommodate dozens of microsatellites and CubeSats on a single launch.<\/p>\n

Development of the SSMS carbon fiber dispenser was started by the European Space Agency in 2016. The first SSMS launch, designated as a \u201cproof of concept\u201d flight, will carry 44 satellites into orbit, ranging in mass from 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) to nearly 400 kilograms (about 900 pounds), officials said.<\/p>\n

Arianespace sold capacity on the Vega rocket to satellite operators and launch brokers, such as Seattle-based Spaceflight, Innovative Solutions in Space of the Netherlands, and D-Orbit of Italy. In the end, Arianespace and the launch brokers signed contracts to launch 44 spacecraft on the SSMS proof of concept mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just finished integration of all of the payloads together,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cThere are 44 of them, so it was quite some work in the payload processing facility. The launcher is integrated on the launch pad. It takes (some) days for electrical checks, for filling up the upper stage fluids, and so on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut most of the work has been completed,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cSo a number of question marks always remain, like weather conditions and high-altitude winds, stuff like that. But other than that, I think we\u2019re good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ranzo said the Vega launcher\u2019s upper stage will perform numerous small maneuvers to deploy the 44 satellites into polar sun-synchronous orbits at two different altitudes a few hundred miles above Earth.<\/p>\n

The mission later this month will carry more satellites into orbit than any previous European rocket launch. The record number of satellites ever carried on a single rocket launch is 104, a mark set in 2017 on a flight by India\u2019s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have SuperDoves from Planet, we have Spire on-board, we have GHGSat from Canada, we have some from the European Commission,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cWe have a whole bunch of customers coming from all over the world, so not bad. It\u2019s fully loaded. We basically have no room left for additional payloads. It\u2019s the first time in Europe that we do a massive rideshare which has such a different in satellites from the size of one to the size of another.\u201d<\/p>\n

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File photo of a Vega rocket on the launch pad. Credit: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Avio and Arianespace are planning more SSMS rideshare missions, beginning in late 2021 or early 2022 with the SSMS 2 mission on a Vega C rocket. The Vega C is an upgraded version of the Vega rocket scheduled to launch for the first time later this year.<\/p>\n

The launch set for March 23 will end an eight-month grounding of the Vega rocket to allow engineers to investigate the cause of the Vega failure last July.<\/p>\n

Investigators determined super-hot gas from burning solid propellant impinged on the structure of the Vega rocket\u2019s Zefiro 23 second stage on the mission last July, resulting in a \u201cthermo-structural failure\u201d on the second stage\u2019s forward dome.<\/p>\n

The hot gas, which burns at more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,000 degrees Celsius), damaged or burned through the carbon fiber structure on the second stage. The structural failure led to the in-flight breakup of the launch vehicle with the UAE\u2019s Falcon Eye 1 spy satellite.<\/p>\n

According to Ranzo, engineers concluded a \u201cmanufacturing anomaly\u201d slipped through Avio\u2019s quality control checks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had thermal protection (on the second stage) where the thickness was perhaps less than one millimeter short, so we had a very, very tiny deviation that was undetectable to all the quality checks,\u201d Ranzo said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we have done is we have greatly improved the technologies to allow for the manufacturing quality controls \u2014 using not only ultrasound but also digital radiography \u2014 in a much finer way with respect to work we used to do in the past,\u201d Ranzo said.<\/p>\n

Avio pulled hardware from the company\u2019s Zefiro 23 production line in Italy, ran it through the improved quality control checks, and successfully test-fired the rocket motor at a test site in Sardinia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe test-fired a Zefiro 23 without any modifications,\u201d Ranzo said. \u201cBut we picked one from production that we subjected to a much deeper quality control. So what we tested was our ability to detect a manufacturing production defect at a much finer level.\u201d<\/p>\n