Moscow. August 17th. INTERFAX.RU – The European Space Agency's (ESA) Vega light-class launch vehicle on Tuesday successfully launched into orbit with the Pleiades Neo 4 remote sensing satellite of the Airbus Defense and Space aerospace corporation and four more European ultra-small vehicles, the operator Arianespace reported.
The launch was carried out from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana at 03:47 Paris time (04:47 Moscow time).
The Pleiades Neo 4 satellite is based on the most advanced technologies in the field of Earth monitoring. It allows you to take ultra-high resolution images up to 30 cm. The device weighing 925 kg will be the second in a constellation of four Pleiades Neo satellites, which are planned to be launched into orbit by order of Airbus Defense and Space, which provides services for both the commercial and defense sectors. The satellite will be launched into a sun-synchronous orbit with an apogee of 625 km and a perigee of 614 km.
As a concomitant payload, the Vega launch vehicle is to launch four mini-satellites (cubsats) into orbit. Among them is the apparatus of the French startup UnseenLabs BRO-4 weighing 6 kg. It is designed to monitor sea traffic. UnseenLabs plans to create an orbital constellation of dozens of such vehicles that will track ships that turn off their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders to hide their location.
Three ESA research cubes will also be launched into orbit – SUNSTORM, LEDSAT and RADCUBE.
The Vega launch vehicle was developed jointly by ESA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). At the same time, Italy made the largest contribution to the project.
Vega has four stages. It can launch a payload weighing up to 1.5 tons into orbit.
This will be the second Vega rocket launch this year and the 19th since the start of its use. She made her first flight on February 13, 2012. In total, 18 starts have been carried out so far, two of which were unsuccessful.
In particular, the Vega rocket launch, which took place on November 17, 2020, ended in an accident. The carrier fell into the ocean shortly after the launch. Vega was to launch into orbit the Spanish optical satellite for remote sensing of the Earth SEOSAT-Ingenio and the French meteorological satellite Taranis. Both vehicles were lost. According to the investigation, the disaster was due to incorrect wiring at the plant of the Italian company Avio during the installation of the fourth stage.
