Europe weakened after the failure of the first commercial space flight
Europe suffered overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday the failure of the first commercial flight of the new Vega-C rocket from Kourou, depriving the continent in the short term of an autonomous solution for launching its satellites, after the delay of Ariane 6 and the impossibility of using the Russian Soyuz rocket.
This file photograph taken on July 12, 2022 shows Vega-C mounted on the launcher’s nose with a metal sphere, LARES-2, to study gravitational waves, in Kourou, French Guiana. Europe’s new Vega-C light launcher, which was to make its first commercial flight with two Airbus satellites on board, was lost after liftoff from Kourou on December 20, 2022, a setback for a weakened Europe in space.
Jody Amiet/AFP
Two minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff on Tuesday, at 22:47 local time (01:47 GMT), the trajectory of the small rocket deviated from the programmed one, so the telemetry stopped reaching the control room of the Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
Launched over the Atlantic Ocean, the rocket had exceeded 100 kilometers in altitude and was just over 900 kilometers north of Kourou. Vega-C is now at risk of being grounded while we understand the causes of the failure.
“The mission is lost”, lamented Stéphane Israel, president of Arianespace, the company responsible for the operation and marketing of European launchers.
An anomaly occurred in Zefiro 40, the second stage of the launcher, the company said in a statement. “The Zefiro 40 turned on and worked normally for about 10 seconds. Then we observed shortly after a gradual deterioration of the trajectory”, said the head of Avio, industrial contractor of Vega-C, Giulio Ranzo, according to which a “commission of inquiry will be constituted” to determine the causes of the failure.
A press conference scheduled in Kourou was postponed to 13:00 local time (16:00 GMT).
If the multiplication of the number of space launches in recent years, driven in particular by the North American SpaceX, tends to make the exercise trivial, the European failure is a reminder of the complexity of this endeavor.
“I’m so sorry. It’s a reminder of how difficult orbital spaceflight is,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted. Lab.
Vega-C would place two Earth observation satellites from Airbus, Pléiades Neo 5 and 6, into orbit, enabling images of any point on the globe several times a day with a resolution of 30 cm.
It is also a blow to the European giant, which developed this program with its own funds, whose services are sold to both companies and the military.
Satellites that provide commercial revenue are generally insured. According to an expert in the sector, the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 were covered for up to 220 million euros by a consortium of insurers, allowing, if Airbus decides, to resume manufacturing them.
Questioned by AFP, Airbus did not comment.
The loss of these satellites is also bad news for armies, in particular the French, customers of the high-resolution images provided by this constellation to monitor the situation in Ukraine in particular, while the French military observation satellite CSO-3 is not yet available. could not be launched due to lack of Soyuz and Ariane 6 availability.
21 launches, three failures
Initially scheduled for November 24, this flight was delayed by a month due to a faulty element “related to the fairing”, Mr. Israel. Not a priori related, therefore, to tonight’s failure.
This was Vega-C’s first commercial flight following its July 13 qualifying launch. Touted as the little sister of the Ariane 6, the rocket uses certain common elements (the main stage of the P120C).
Vega-C is an improved version of the Vega light launcher, which is the third failure in 21 launches since 2012, when Ariane 5 has had two in 115 launches since 1996 and Space X’s Falcon 9 none in 59 launches since 2012. beginning of the year .
For the European Space Agency (ESA), responsible for European launcher programs, this is yet another setback.
There are only two Ariane 5s left for launch and the postponement to the end of 2023 of the inaugural flight of Ariane 6, initially scheduled for 2020, deprives Europeans of access to geostationary orbit, at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers, and of the possibility of sending the most heavy for space.
And due to lack of access to the Soyuz medium launcher, whose missions Arianespace marketed on behalf of international customers until February, the ESA was thus forced to resort to SpaceX to launch two scientific missions.
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