Space Rider is Europe’s next-generation reusable transportation system for low Earth orbit

Rome, 7th December 2020 - Today Arianespace and Airbus have announced the closing of the contract to launch the CO3D earth observation satellite constellation with Vega C in 2023.

Colleferro, 17 November 2020 – Tonight during the Vega VV17 mission with the SEOSAT-Ingenio and Taranis satellites onboard, after 8 minutes from take-off and after the nominal trajectory recorded for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage engines and after the first nominal ignition of the last stage engine, an anomaly has occurred, which caused a trajectory deviation en

Just after one month from the SSMS Maiden Mission on Vega VV16, the SSMS module that will fly on the Vega VV18, scheduled for the beginning of 2021 after the next VV17 mission in November, is already fully booked.

Flight VV16 marks the success of SSMS (Small Spacecraft Mission Service) payload adapter maiden flight. 53 micro and nanosatellites have been deployed into Sun-Synchronous orbit.

During the night of the 15th of August the third successful launch of Ariane 5 took place from the French Guiana Space Center (CSG). The European launcher correctly placed into geo-stationary orbit the telecommunication satellites for B-SAT and Intelsat, plus a servicing payload for Northrop Grumman’s SpaceLogistics LLC.

The Vega launcher, after a first stop in March due to Covid 19 epidemic and a second stop in June caused by exceptionally unfavorable weather condition, is now ready to resume operations.

Colleferro (Rome), 1st July 2020 – Vega VV16 flight operations have been interrupted by Arianespace due to the presence of exceptionally unfavorable high altitude easterly winds. The Vega launcher has been available and flightworthy since June 18 on the launchpad but did not receive a green light from the safety authority since then. Two launch chronology attempts were made during the past week but unfortunately interrupted shortly before lift-off due to conditions exceeding the allowable limits.

As winds at altitude above the Guiana Space Center remain unfavorable, the final chronology operations for Vega’s Flight VV16 mission have been suspended.

The Vega launcher and the 53 satellites on board are in a stabilized configuration, and in total safety.