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Cayenne (France) (AFP)
The launch of the European Vega rocket, which was due to take off this Saturday night from Kurú, in French Guiana, has been postponed for the fourth time due to “adverse weather conditions,” the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) announced in a release.
“A new attempt will be considered on Sunday, June 28” as long as there is “a favorable evolution of the weather conditions,” Arianespace said in a statement.
The Vega rocket was to be launched from Kurú on Saturday at 22:51 local time (Sunday 03:51 in Paris) with 53 satellites on board for 21 clients from 13 different countries.
But it stopped minutes before the scheduled launch, AFP found.
“Due to adverse weather conditions at the Guayanés Space Center, the launch of Vega is postponed again,” the CNES said.
It is the fourth consecutive postponement of the Vega “VV16” flight.
The launch was scheduled for March 18, but was postponed due to the coronavirus crisis. And last week, the device was postponed twice due to unfavorable weather conditions.
The mission has an expected duration of 1 hour and 45 minutes for a low orbit launch (500 km altitude).
This program promoted by the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA) is unprecedented because it is the first European launch of a shared flight (‘rideshare’).
“For the first time, Europe will be able to consolidate a mission with several dozen satellites on board, which other launchers in the world have already done,” such as the US SpaceX, said Stéphane Israel, CEO of Arianespace.
This “cluster” is made up of seven small satellites (weighing between 15 and 150 kg), as well as 46 nanosatellites. Its applications range from communication to Earth observation, through scientific research.
An identical system will be proposed for the future Ariane 6 launcher, whose first flight had to be postponed to 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic.
The last time a Vega rocket was fired was in 2019.
© 2020 AFP
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