Europe's Vega C rocket fails on 2nd-ever mission, 2 satellites lost - Space.com

The 2nd ngo of Europe's caller Vega C rocket did not spell according to plan.

The medium-lift Vega C lifted disconnected from Europe's Spaceport successful Kourou, French Guiana connected Tuesday (Dec. 20) astatine 8:47 p.m. EST (10:47 p.m. section time; 0147 GMT connected Dec. 21), carrying 2 satellites for Airbus' Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation. 

The rocket's archetypal stage, known arsenic the P120C, did its job. But the 2nd stage, called the Zefiro 40, did not.

"Approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds aft liftoff an anomaly occurred connected the Zefiro 40, frankincense ending the Vega C mission," representatives of Arianespace, the French institution that operates the Vega C, said successful an emailed connection connected Tuesday night. "Data analyses are successful advancement to find the reasons of this failure."

Related: The past of rockets

The Vega C was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is operated by Arianespace. 

The 115-foot-tall (35 meters), four-stage rocket is simply a much almighty mentation of the Vega, which archetypal flew successful 2012. The Vega C tin haul astir 5,070 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of payload to a 435-mile-high (700 kilometers) sun-synchronous orbit, compared to 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) for the older rocket, according to Arianespace (opens successful caller tab).

The 2 spacecraft that were mislaid owed to Tuesday's failure, Pléiades Neo 5 and Pléiades Neo 6, unneurotic weighed 4,359 pounds (1,977 kg). The duo were headed to sun-synchronous orbit, wherever they would person completed Airbus' Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation.

"The constellation is made of 4 identical satellites, built utilizing the latest Airbus innovations and technological developments, and allows to image immoderate constituent of the globe, respective times per day, astatine 30-centimeter [12 inches] resolution," Arianespace wrote successful a mission statement of the Vega C (opens successful caller tab).

"Highly agile and reactive, they tin beryllium tasked up to 15 minutes earlier acquisition and nonstop the images backmost to Earth wrong the pursuing hour," Arianespace added. "Smaller, lighter, much agile, close and reactive than the competition, they are the archetypal of their people whose capableness volition beryllium afloat commercially available."

The Vega C had 1 formation nether its loop earlier Tuesday. In July 2022, the rocket successfully lofted LARES-2, a 650-pound (295 kg) outer developed by the Italian Space Agency, arsenic good arsenic six ride-along cubesats.

Tuesday's ngo was primitively expected to assistance disconnected connected Nov. 24. But Arianespace delayed it astir a period to regenerate faulty instrumentality connected the rocket, a process that required opening the Vega C's payload fairing (opens successful caller tab) astatine a processing installation successful Kourou.

Further analyses volition presumably effort to find if the faulty instrumentality had thing to bash with the motorboat failure. We should larn much connected Wednesday (Dec. 21); Arianespace plans to clasp a media teleconference astatine 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT).

Mike Wall is the writer of "Out There (opens successful caller tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a publication astir the hunt for alien life. Follow him connected Twitter @michaeldwall (opens successful caller tab). Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or on Facebook (opens successful caller tab).