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One person’s wiring mistake could have caused the European Vega rocket to crash minutes after launch, destroying two satellites worth £ 280 MILLION
- Mission VV17 took off from French Guiana at 01:52 GMT on November 17th
- It carried payloads designed to study the Earth and its upper atmosphere
- Aerospace company Arianespace said “reversing the cables” caused the malfunction
- Fortunately, the errant rocket launcher crashed to Earth in an uninhabited area
A wiring error caused the destruction of the European rocket Vega VV17 shortly after launch yesterday, aerospace company Arianespace SA announced.
The rocket, which carried a payload of two satellites that together cost 315 million euros (281.5 million pounds), took off from Kourou, French Guiana at 01:52 GMT on November 17.
After eight minutes of flight, after turning on the upper engine stage, the Vega rocket veered off its planned route and lost contact with ground tracking stations.
This prompted Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël to declare in the launch webcast that “the mission is lost”.
The errant launcher subsequently crashed on Earth in an uninhabited area near the “launch zone” planned for the third stage of the rocket, the so-called “Zephyr 9”.
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A wiring error caused the destruction of the European rocket Vega VV17 shortly after launch yesterday, aerospace company Arianespace SA announced. In the photo, the VV17 takes off
“Eight minutes after take-off and immediately after starting the engine of the fourth stage of the Vega – the AVUM stage – we observed the degradation of the trajectory”, said in a statement Mr. Israël.
This he explained, meant that the “rocket speed was no longer nominal”.
“I want to offer my sincere apologies to my clients for this mission,” Israel continued, adding that Arianespace would move to analyze the failure.
Subsequent investigations determined that a “reversal of cables” during the construction of the final stage of the Italian-built launcher had caused the flight to divert.
The incident, therefore, appears to have been the result of human error rather than imperfect design.
The TARANIS satellite of the French space agency and the Spanish observer SEOSAT-Ingenio Earth were lost due to the catastrophe.
TARANIS was a 115 million euro (103 million pounds) satellite built over ten years to study electromagnetic flashes in the upper atmosphere.
It took its name from the Celtic god of thunder, with the acronym short for “Tool for the Analysis of RAdiation from lightNIng and Sprites”.
Meanwhile, the € 200m (£ 179m) SEOSAT-Ingenio sported a high-resolution dual camera capable of capturing anywhere on Earth within three days at 8.2-foot resolution.
After eight minutes of flight, after turning on the upper engine stage, the Vega rocket veered off its planned route and lost contact with ground tracking stations. In the photo, a VV17 component diagram, showing the AVUM engine stage that failed eight minutes after launch
The Spanish observer SEOSAT-Ingenio Earth (left) and the French space agency’s TARANIS satellite (right) were lost due to the catastrophe, which together cost 281.5 million pounds.
The investigation determined that a “reversal of cables” during construction of the final stage of the Italian-built launcher had caused flight deviation – and that, therefore, such was the result of human error rather than imperfect design. . In the photo, the SEOSAT-Ingenio and TARANIS satellites are loaded into the payload fairing of the VV17 rocket
This week’s disaster is the second major failure in the past two years to assault the Vega program, which has racked up 15 successful launches in total.
In July 2019, a Vega rocket carrying a satellite into orbit on behalf of the UAE failed during launch, with experts tracing the root cause of a faulty engine on the booster rocket.
Arianespace put the Vega rockets back into action in early September this year, successfully deploying 53 small satellites in orbit for 21 different customers.
The rocket, which carried a payload of two satellites that together cost 315 million euros (281.5 million pounds), took off from Kourou, French Guiana at 01:52 GMT on 17 November
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