Avio CEO comments about the results of the Independent Inquiry Commission on the anomaly of Vega flight VV17 and on the return-to-flight of the rocket with the VV18 mission by the end of Q1 2021.

Colleferro, 18 December 2020 - Avio S.p.A. announces that the Independent Inquiry Commission composed of ESA and Arianespace and supported by Avio has completed its works. The Commission has confirmed the initial hypothesis of a problem related to the integration of the fourth-stage AVUM Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system as the cause of the loss of control of the launcher. The Commission has also provided a comprehensive set of recommendations to ensure safe and prompt return to flight by end of Q1 2021, as well as to ensure launch vehicles reliability on the long term.

After the yesterday meeting in Rome, the Undersecretary of State with responsibility for Space Riccardo Fraccaro and the French Minister of Finance with responsibility for Space Bruno Le Maire, issued a joint statement highlighting the full institutional support to the Ariane and Vega programmes, with particular regard to the return-to-flight of the Italian launcher designed and produced by Avio S.p.A. with the ESA (European Space Agency) mandate.

The support was also reiterated by the Italian Interministerial Committee for Space and Aerospace Policies.

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.

Save the date: on June 19th Vega takes off again... keep your eyes on the sky and make space for your dreams!

Colleferro (Rome) 29 April 2020 – Avio informs that CNES (the French Space Agency) and Arianespace have communicated today the gradual re-opening of the Guiana Space Center, starting from the 11 of May. The space center in Kourou had been closed at the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 16 of March 2020. At that point the operations for the 16th launch of Vega, scheduled by the end of the same month, had been freezed while the launcher and the satellites on board had been secured.

The upcoming Vega VV16 flight will be launched - together with the new SSMS payload dispenser - by the end of March and the integration campaign has already started. 

The units assembling the launcher - made in Avio - landed in Kourou, French Guyana.

Giulio Ranzo CEO of Avio, Ettore Scardecchia Chief Technical Officer and Andrea Preve Vega Program Manager explain how we are going towards Vega Flight on 2020