The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to resume launches of the Vega-C single body rocket before the end of 2023 after three out of eight prior launches failed and resulted in accidents, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd March, 2023) The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to resume launches of the Vega-C single body rocket before the end of 2023 after three out of eight prior launches failed and resulted in accidents, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said on Friday.
"The failure represents the third failure in the last eight flights of Vega-C. We take it extremely serious in terms of actions that need to follow out of this. I would claim that we are in a crisis ... We are recognizing these shortcomings ... We would expect a launch of Vega-C before the end of 2023," Aschbacher told a briefing.
In December 2022, French operating company Arianespace said that the Vega-C rocket failed during its second mission due to an engine problem after launch from the space center in Kourou, French Guiana.
In 2019 and 2020, Vega-C launches from the Guiana Space Centre also failed, causing ESA to lose satellites manufactured by Italy, France and the United Arab Emirates, which the company planned to put into orbit.
Vega-C is an upgraded version of the Vega launch rocket. Measuring 35 meters (114 feet) in length, almost 5 meters more than the original version, and weighing about 210 tons, it is capable of placing a payload weighing up to 2,300 kilograms (5,000 pounds) in a polar orbit 700 kilometers (435 miles) high.
