The Arianespace’s Vega rocket, operated by the French-based company Arianespace, lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:36 p.m. EDT on October 8th.
Arianespace’s Vega rocket completed its first mission of the year, launching 12 satellites into orbit
These 12 satellites are destined for low Earth orbit (LEO) and are expected to be deployed approximately one hour and 45 minutes after liftoff, pending a smooth mission. The Arianespace’s Vega rocket, standing at 100 feet (30 meters) tall, is designed to carry smaller payloads, with a capacity of 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms) to a circular orbit located 435 miles (700 kilometers) above Earth, as detailed in Arianespace’s specifications.
This mission, named VV23, marks the Arianespace’s Vega rocket‘s 23rd flight since its debut in February 2012. Notably, this is the standard Vega variant’s first flight since November 2021, following the launch of its upgraded and more potent counterpart, the Vega-C, in July 2022 and December 2022.
The prominent payloads on board VV23 are THEOS-2, an Earth-imaging satellite weighing 919 pounds (417 kg) destined for Thailand’s government use, and FormoSat-7R/Triton, developed by Taiwan’s space agency
The latter, weighing 531 pounds (241 kg), carries the Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R), which collects sea surface signals to aid in wind field calculations for ocean forecasting, benefiting the global meteorology community.
Additionally, VV23 includes 10 other payloads for six different customers, totaling 12 satellites with a combined weight of 2,738 pounds (1,242 kg). This successful launch comes after a brief delay due to a measurement issue on the Arianespace’s Vega rocket, which led to the postponement of the initial launch attempt on October 6th.
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