ESA’s newest rocket Vega-C completes its maiden flight
- Country:
- France
The European Space Agency's (ESA) new medium-lift Vega-C rocket today, 13 July 2022, completed its maiden flight - Flight VV21. For this inaugural flight, LARES-2, a scientific mission of the Italian space agency, ASI, was the main payload while six CubeSats from France, Italy and Slovenia flew as secondary payloads.
VV21 lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at 15:13 CEST/13:13 UTC (10:13 local time).
LARES-2 will study the frame-dragging effect, a distortion of space-time caused by the rotation of a massive body such as Earth as predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The six CubeSats that made a secondary payload package included:
- AstroBio CubeSat (Italy) - to test a solution for detecting biomolecules in space
- Greencube (Italy) - carries experiment to grow plants in microgravity
- ALPHA (Italy) - to help understand phenomena related to Earth's magnetosphere
The three other CubeSats will study the effects of a harsh radiation environment on electronic systems.
- Trisat-R (Slovenia)
- MTCube-2 (France)
- Celesta (France)
"Today we open a new era of European launch solutions, starting with Vega-C and to be complemented by Ariane 6," said ESA Director of Space Transportation Daniel Neuenschwander.
ESA's new #VegaC rocket has completed its inaugural flight, placing main payload LARES-2 – from @ASI_spazio – into its planned orbit. Six research CubeSats flew as secondary payloads. #VV21 👉 https://t.co/nnvZetQBVb pic.twitter.com/agyJjSraoh
— ESA (@esa) July 13, 2022
Vega-C represents a dramatic capability boost compared to its predecessor, Vega. Featuring a new first stage, P120C, and a new second stage, Zefiro-40, and an uprated fourth stage, the launcher increases performance from 1.5 t to about 2.3 t in a reference 700 km polar orbit.
Vega-C can orbit larger satellites, two main payloads or accommodate various arrangements for rideshare missions. The agency's upcoming Space Rider return-to-Earth vehicle will be launched to orbit on Vega-C.
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