Vega C Makes Maiden Flight Written 14 July 2022
First launch of the ESA's new Vega-C launch vehicle, July 13, 2022. | Credit: SciNews YouTube; framegrab
Space News reports that the new Vega C medium-lift rocket took off on its maiden flight Wednesday, “carrying an Italian physics satellite and six cubesats.” The Vega C was launched from the ESA facility in Kourou, French Guiana at 9:13 a.m. EST “at the end of a two-hour launch window. Technical issues had twice halted the countdown sequence.” The primary payload was the 295-kilogram Laser Relativity Satellite-2 (LARES-2), placed “in an unusual inclined orbit at 5,893 kilometers to test Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.”
Full Story (Space News)
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First launch of the ESA's new Vega-C launch vehicle, July 13, 2022
(SciNews via YouTube)