The “Arianespace” group announced that the European space rocket “Vega C”, which was supposed to make its first commercial flight, took off from Kourou base in French Guiana, carrying two satellites for Airbus’ Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation, but its launch mission failed after a few minutes.
The medium-lift Vega C lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Tuesday (Dec. 20) at 8:47 pm EST, reports a local Arabic daily quoting AFP.
The rocket’s first stage, known as the P120C, did its job. But the second stage, called the Zefiro 40, did not.
“Approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff an anomaly occurred on the Zefiro 40, thus ending the Vega C mission,” representatives of Arianespace, the French company that operates the Vega C, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday night. “Data analyses are in progress to determine the reasons of this failure.”
This rocket was supposed to put on its first commercial flight two Earth observation satellites manufactured by Airbus.
This was the first commercial flight of the missile after its successful launch on July 13.