ESA's Vega Launcher Has Successful Maiden Flight

Zothecula writes "The European Space Agency's new Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata — or Vega — launch vehicle lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 10 a.m. GMT on February 13 on its maiden flight. Designed for launching small payloads, Vega is intended to complement Europe's existing family of launchers that includes the Ariane 5 heavy-lifter and Soyuz medium-class launchers. The qualification flight, designated VV01, saw the first Vega successfully carry nine satellites into orbit."

Comments

Chevy?

[garyoa1]

Hope they do better than Chevy's Vega.

Re:Chevy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Now I have Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega going through my head. Better than Luka, I guess.

europe's spaceport?

[iiii]

Why is "Europe's Spaceport" in South America? Isn't that South America's Spaceport?

Re:europe's spaceport?

[ColdWetDog]

Why is "Europe's Spaceport" in South America? Isn't that South America's Spaceport?

Mind your own business ....

Re:europe's spaceport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Hawaii part of the United States of America? It's not in America?

Although it is geographically in South America, French Guiana is an overseas region of France, and hence considered to part of the EU politically.

As to why ESA put their spaceport there: You want to launch eastward (to get the best "speed boost" from Earth's rotation), and you get the best boost at (or near) the equator. You also want to launch over water, in case the thing comes back down unexpectedly. French Guiana is close to the equator and has an ocean to the east -- mainland Europe has neither.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[Dusty]

Why is "Europe's Spaceport" in South America? Isn't that South America's Spaceport?

"Europe's Spaceport" is in Kourou, in French Guiana. Which is a French colony in South America.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those French prisoners have had a devil of a time trying to escape. Nice to see their creativity rewarded with success.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a colony. It is a French department on equal standing as any other mainland department. They vote for national and EU elections and use the euro.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[timbo234]

It's not South America's because French Guiana is part of France (and thus the EU), in the same way that Hawaii is part of the US despite being gegraphically separate. I.e. unlike with the UK and a lot of other European countries France has made their former colonies 'regions' with the same status as the regions in European France.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[hackertourist]

It's Europe's space port because ESA built, paid for and runs the facility.

As for why it's in SA: Europe wanted a site that was close to the equator (to take advantage of the Earth's rotational speed, and to make launches to GEO easier). Also, Europe isn't a good place to launch rockets from, due to rocket stages impacting downrange.

Re:europe's spaceport?

[hitmark]

Not all of them. There are more then a few African nations using French that are not of France. And was not Vietnam a french colony at one point?

Re:europe's spaceport?

[timbo234]

I meant the ones that haven't gone independent, i.e. the status of these regions within France is very different to, say, the status of the British Overseas Territories in the UK's political structure

Re:Never quite understood this

[2Y9D57]

ESA replaced Ariane 4 with Ariane 5 -- the last A4 launch was 15 February 2003 -- for cost reasons. two satellites on an A5 for less that twice the cost of an A4 launch. Soyuz didn't start launching from French Guiana until 2011.

loose political association between satellites

[schlachter]

The 9 satellites are expected to fly in a lose formation based on political and trade cooperation. If any satellite fails, the mission will fail. Each satellite will manage it's own fuel, but always report that it's got plenty of fuel, until the moment that it has none. :)

The loose problem is a good solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor countries can put their lightweight satellites to this ESA's launcher system VEGA at lower costs that are affordable for them!.
And for little time of development!
And they could have the specifications of the satellites's boxes that the ESA could provide them (engineering dimensions of the payloads).

Collaborative countries don't need fear the confidentiality of their satellites. ESA could provide mechanisms camera-vigilated (among other mechanisms) that in the time for the launching, from their embassies in the ESA building, they will start to run their satellites's cars into the launching platforms in lesser time that was walking between their local embassies and the zero time for the launching.

Loose political collaboration between satellites is a SAFETY for PRIVACY of technologies from many countries (poor countries can benefit from it at affordable commercial costs).

LOOSENESS and PRIVACYNESS could be compatible.

JCPM: in the past, Boeing vs Airbus in the aerial space, in the present, NASA vs ESA in the Earth's low-orbit race, in the future, hahahaha, a mistery.

Re:The loose problem is a good solution.

[schlachter]

I don't understand how you managed to generate all this meaningless text from my satirical post above.

Nonetheless....I am particularly impressed with your claim that

LOOSENESS and PRIVACYNESS could be compatible.

Re:Never quite understood this

[Super_Z]

Soyuz is man-rated. Ariane 4 apparently never had the amount of instrumentation needed for man-rating.

Eagerly awaiting follow-up launchers

[rsborg]

Bison, Sagat and Balrog.

Newspaper ad on VEGA payload

[Anonymous Coward]

Today Corriere della Sera, the main Italian daily, was carrying a whole page ad on VEGA. It claimed something like: it's so cheap that your research project could be up here in space.

So cool!

Re:Never quite understood this

[hackertourist]

Around 1980, ESA came to the conclusion that by the end of the '90s, Ariane 4 would no longer be large enough to lift the predicted satellites to GEO. That's why ESA developed Ariane 5.

ESA has been considering Soyuz since at least 2004. I suspect using Soyuz instead of Ariane 4 was a matter of cost.

As for manned Soyuz launches: the capsule hasn't been designed for sea landings, according to a 2004 ESA report. So manned launches would require a redesign.

Re:Never quite understood this

[IrquiM]

Not from French Guiana, as that would mean landing in the ocean, which it cannot do.

Re:Never quite understood this

[root_42]

Then why introduce the Soyuz-ST with a launch capacity that is almost exactly the same as the Ariane 4? There was either a need for a 3 tonne launcher or there wasn't. What am I missing?

I am not sure, but I guess that costs per launch are a reason. With Soyuz, a bunch of russian companies manufacture the rocket parts and final assembly and erection happen in Kourou. I guess that this frees ESAs resources considerably, compared to having to make an Ariane 4 in Europe. Furthermore, I don't see any Ariane 4 integration buildings anymore on ESAs map of the Centre Spatial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_Centre_Spatial_Guyanais-en.svg
It is likely that the buildings that were used for Ariane 4 have been assimilated by the Ariane 5 pipeline. So either way you would have had to build a new integration and erection facility, so it seems that Soyuz-ST was the most efficient and reliable way to do that.

Re:Goliat!

[cronco]

Considering it's a 10cm^3 cube, it's good to know we still have our sense of (self-)irony :)