The small rocket will send a satellite from the Earth observation programme, Copernicus, into space.
Planned takeoff from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on September 3 at 10:50 p.m. local time: this will be the last mission of the Italian Vega launcher from the Avio firm, in service since 2012, before the handover to Vega C, an improved and more powerful version, grounded since 2022 following an accident.
This flight “is the second part of the restoration of European spatial autonomy and strategic autonomy,” comments Philippe Baptiste, president of CNES, the National Center for Space Studies.
This mission, called VV24, will place its passenger, the Sentinel-2C satellite of the European Union’s Copernicus programme, in sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of around 780 km. It will be placed in orbit 57 minutes after lift-off.
As part of the Earth observation space programme, Europe’s area of excellence, the Sentinel-2C satellite will support a wide range of operational applications, including agriculture, water quality monitoring, management of natural disasters such as forest fires, earthquakes or floods, and detection of methane emissions.
The mission will honor “Arianespace’s commitment to guaranteeing Europe independent access to space,” the French group Arianespace, which is managing the launch, said in a statement. Since the last flight of Ariane 5 in July 2023, Europeans have no longer been able to put a satellite into orbit by themselves.
Pressure on Vega C
The success of the first flight of Ariane 6, whose development was four years late, in early July gave wings to the Europeans, marking the end of the “black” year during which the Old Continent was deprived of access to space. The resumption of flights of their launchers is all the more strategic for the Europeans as they are struggling to exist in the face of the American giant SpaceX, which launches its reusable Falcon 9 rockets approximately twice a week.
Cautious optimism is warranted regarding Vega C, whose first commercial flight in December 2022 ended in failure causing the loss of two Airbus satellites, while Europe was already deprived of Soyuz after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and awaiting Ariane 6.
“I am confident. We will be ready from the end of November to launch Vega C,” declared Toni Tolker-Nielsen, director of space transportation at the European Space Agency (ESA), adding that the design of the engine, which was the source of several anomalies, had been “completely revised” and the latest tests were conclusive.
“There is a lot of pressure on Vega C, but there is no reason why it should not go well,” he assured.
According to him, ESA is now preparing a second Ariane 6 flight in December as well as six Ariane 6 and four Vega C launches in 2025.
“We have emerged from a technical and political launcher crisis,” says Pierre Lionnet, research director at Eurospace, which brings together European space industry players. “However, the big question is who will buy enough launches so that the operator and industry players can provide the services at a price that is acceptable to customers and that would allow the entire industrial chain to make profits,” he adds.
Of all the world powers, Europe is “the smallest customer for launch needs” and must find its place in a market “that has changed radically”, he concludes. For Toni Tolker-Nielsen of the ESA, it will take at least “a decade” for Europe to become competitive in this field against the United States.
