Arianespace<\/b>\u2019s Vega C launch on Tuesday night failed, losing two Pl\u00e9iades Neo satellites for customer Airbus<\/b>. This was just the second launch for Vega C, Europe\u2019s new light-lift rocket. <\/p>\n
Arianespace CTO Pierre-Yves Tissier described the Dec. 20 mission, Flight VV22, from French Guiana in a Wednesday press conference. The first stage ignited nominally, and stage separation was successful. The second stage Zefiro 40 engine ignited, but then there was a sudden decrease in pressure. <\/p>\n
French space agency CNES, the launch safety authority, gave the order to destroy the launcher, and the rocket fell into the ocean safely, Tissier said. <\/p>\n
The satellites lost, Pl\u00e9iades Neo 5 and 6, were the final two satellites of the Airbus Pl\u00e9iades Neo Earth observation constellation. Airbus manufactured both satellites. <\/p>\n
Arianespace has recovered all data from the mission, and Tissier said the failure seems to be limited to the Zefiro 40 engine. The Zefiro 40 is a new second stage engine for the Vega C rocket, built by Vega C prime contractor Avio. <\/p>\n
Avio leadership took full responsibility for the failure. \u201cIn our capacity as industrial prime contractor, we take full charge of the responsibility for this Vega C failure,\u201d Avio CEO Giulio Ranzo said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) have appointed an independent inquiry commission to analyze the failure and identify measures to safely and reliably resume Vega C flights. The commission will be made up of independent experts. <\/p>\n
Arianespace CEO St\u00e9phane Isra\u00ebl stressed the Vega C failure does not impact the Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 programs. Arianespace has two more Ariane 5 launches, and the first Ariane 6 flight is set for the end of 2023, Isra\u00ebl said.<\/p>\n
Stefano Bianchi, head of flight programs at ESA Space Transportation, spoke about the failure and resolve to restore Vega C to flight. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a flawless flight five months ago, now we have to face a failure, which hits us heavily. As ESA and with our partners, we should do whatever is needed to go back to flight in a safe, robust, reliable manner,\u201d Bianchi said. \u201cEurope needs Vega and needs a launch which works each time for the European [space] industry.\u201d <\/p>\n
Vega C had a successful inaugural launch in July, operated by the European Space Agency. Arianespace then took over commercial service with the rocket, and has a backlog of 13 missions. Vega C is an enhanced version of the Vega lightweight vehicle, designed for greater flexibility, with more payload mass.<\/p>\n
Vega C\u2019s predecessor, Vega, was also plagued by launch failures. It suffered two failures, one in July 2019 that lost a satellite for the United Arab Emirates, and another in November 2020 losing satellites for Spain\u2019s Center for Development of Industrial Technology and CNES. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arianespace\u2019s Vega C launch on Tuesday night failed, losing two Pl\u00e9iades Neo satellites for customer Airbus. This was just the second launch for Vega C, Europe\u2019s new light-lift rocket. Arianespace CTO Pierre-Yves Tissier described the Dec. 20 mission, Flight VV22, from French Guiana in a Wednesday press conference. The first stage ignited nominally, and stage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}