Europe’s premier small rocket has failed in flight once again.
The Vega vehicle was lost 2.5 minutes into its latest mission from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
It was carrying two French-built, high-resolution Earth imaging spacecraft.
This is the third Vega failure in eight outings and puts further pressure on the European satellite sector which has lost the use of Russian rockets and will soon witness the retirement of the heavy-lift Ariane-5 launcher.
The follow-on replacement, Ariane-6, is a year at least from entering service.
It was the new variant of Vega, known as Vega C, that failed. This rocket has four stages in total, most of which burn a solid fuel.
The motor on the first stage, called P120C, appeared to perform without issue.
The anomaly occurred in the rocket’s second-stage, the Zefiro 40.
An immediate analysis pointed to an “under-pressure” in the segment. Real-time flight tracking showed the rocket unable to maintain its planned trajectory.
The vehicle and its Pléiades Neo Earth observation satellites crashed down into the Atlantic.
“After the lift-off and the nominal ignition of P120C, which is the first stage of the Vega, an under-pressure has been observed on the Zefiro 40, which is the second stage of the Vega,” confirmed Stéphane Israël, the CEO of Arianespace, the company that operates the Kourou spaceport.
“And after this under-pressure, we have observed a deviation of the trajectory and a very strong anomaly. Unfortunately, we can say that the mission is lost.”
Mr Israël apologised to the satellite owners, the aerospace company Airbus Defence and Space.
The two lost satellites would have been among the most powerful European optical imagers in space, able to resolve details on the ground as small as 30cm across.
Airbus had previously lofted four Pléiades Neo satellites. The units five and six would have completed the planned constellation.
Arianespace is promising further details on the mishap in a media briefing later on Wednesday.
An independent commission will be set up to investigate what happened. Only after its findings are delivered and any remedies taken can Vega be expected to return to flight.
For the previous failure, in November 2020, this was a gap of five months.
Satellite operators in Europe were already chasing a limited number of rocket rides.
The war in Ukraine, and the resulting western sanctions, means Russian Soyuz rockets – a mainstay of European space operations – are no longer on the market.
The Ariane-5, Europe’s biggest rocket, has only two more flights in early 2023, before it is withdrawn. The Ariane-6 follow-on, however, is not yet ready to fly. Its maiden mission is scheduled for the end of 2023 and may even slip in 2024.
The shortage of rides recently prompted the European Space Agency to purchase two American launches.
The Euclid telescope and the Hera asteroid mission will go up on SpaceX Falcon-9 vehicles in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
