Vega takes the challenge
Vega, Europe’s small launcher, will fly tomorrow on its second qualification flight to demonstrate its flexibility.
Carrying ESA’s IXV experimental spaceplane, flight VV04 will be operated by ESA using the third launcher procured under the Verta – Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment – programme, that is ensuring the smooth transition to full commercial exploitation.
By providing technical supervision and developing complementary services and hardware, such as a multiple-payload capacity and by demonstrating launch system flexibility to deliver a wide range of missions into different orbits, ESA is working towards a full handover of the launch system at the end of Verta, which will be concluded with VV06.
Vega was first qualified on 13 February 2012 carrying an Italian experimental payload. The first Verta flight, on 7 May 2013, delivered ESA’s Proba-V and a Vietnamese Earth observation satellite – Vega’s first commercial payload – into different orbits, demonstrating its versatility with a very complex multiple firing strategy. An Estonian nanosatellite was also released.
Vega’s third ascent on 29 April 2014 was an exploitation flight operated by Arianespace carrying a Kazakh Earth observation satellite.
VV05 will also be an exploitation flight, operated by Arianespace to launch ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-2A. The last Verta flight in the second half of 2015 will orbit ESA’s LISA Pathfinder scientific satellite.
The operational maturity of the Vega launch system is being consolidated within the Verta programme at such a rapid pace that 8 out of the 10 launchers procured by Arianespace are already booked.
What is different about VV04?
For the first time, Vega will take an equatorial trajectory instead of heading north into the polar or Sun-synchronous orbit – the core of Vega’s market – as in previous flights.
Vega will head eastwards to release IXV into a suborbital path reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean to demonstrate autonomous European reentry capability for future space transportation.
Vega is designed to carry scientific and Earth observation payloads of 300–2500 kg, depending on the orbit and altitude.
Weighing close to 2 t and the size of a car, IXV comes close to the upper limit of Vega’s capabilities and dwarfs the weight and dimensions of previous payloads. This time, there’s just enough room for it to fit in the protective fairing.
Weather forecasts will play an important role for this launch. The decision for liftoff will depend on meteorological conditions in two very different regions of the globe: in Kourou, French Guiana at liftoff and in the Pacific Ocean for a safe splashdown.
Although both Vega and IXV are robust enough to deal with a range of weather, other considerations such as a rough sea – which might hinder recovery – play an important part in the decision.
