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A Vega rocket carrying two European satellites took off Monday night from the Guyana Space Center. Arianespace
While all eyes were on SpaceX’s historic Crew Dragon mission as its “Resilience” spacecraft carrying four astronauts steadily approached the International Space Station Monday night, a European rocket carrying two Earth observation satellites took off from South America. and tragically failed shortly after take-off.
A Vega rocket built by France’s Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA) took off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana at 8:52 pm Eastern time. Eight minutes later, immediately after the ignition of its upper final stage, called Avum, the rocket deviated from course and lost contact with ground stations.
“We can now confirm that the mission is lost,” Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël said during a launch webcast. “Eight minutes after take-off… we observed the degradation of the trajectory. It means the speed was no longer rated, so we observed this degradation. “
“We deeply apologize to our customers,” the executive tweeted early Tuesday morning, adding that engineers from Arianespace and ESA are investigating the cause of the malfunction.
We are working with our partners @Avio_Group analyze the VV17 anomaly data. Press conference at 10.00, Kourou time, today and commission of inquiry with ESA. We deeply apologize to our customers @ESA_EO @CDTIoficial @cnes
– Stéphane Israël (@arianespaceceo) November 17, 2020
It was the second major failure of the Vega rocket launch in 18 months. Last July, a Vega rocket carrying a spy satellite for the United Arab Emirates deviated from its trajectory two minutes after takeoff. A subsequent investigation found that the anomaly was due to a faulty motor on the booster.
The payload of Monday’s mission included a Spanish satellite called SEOSAT-Ingenio, the country’s first Earth observation satellite, and a scientific satellite called TARANIS (Tool for the Analysis of RAdiation from lightNIng and Sprites) made by the French space agency CNES to study the earth’s upper atmosphere.
Clock #Vega takes off on its 17th mission from the spaceport in French Guiana, carrying two Earth observation satellites to Europe: #SEOSAT-Ingenio e #TARANIS. # VV17@that @CDTIoficial @cnes @Avio_Group @AirbusSpace pic.twitter.com/LIGTClzK0L
– Stéphane Israël (@arianespaceceo) November 17, 2020
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