Cruel end to the year and above all gloomy prospects for Europe in space. Its ambition to stay in the race against the Americans and the Chinese is seriously called into question after the failure of the launch of its new Vega C rocket. Tuesday, December 20, two minutes and twenty-seven seconds after takeoff from the Kourou base , in Guyana, this launcher disappeared from the controls and, with it, the two Pléiade observation satellites that it was to put into orbit for Airbus.
The problem comes from the second floor. A commission of inquiry should be set up and deliver its first conclusions as soon as possible. On this assessment will then depend the continuation of the program for this rocket manufactured by the Italian Avio, whose design was designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the flight program carried out by Arianespace.
This failure weakens Arianespace, which risks finding itself several months without a launcher to honor its commercial contracts. Until early 2022, the European firm had a range of three rockets, including two European ones: the small Vega, for light satellites in low orbit between 300 and 2,000 kilometers from the Earth, and its big sister Ariane 5, for heavy loads to be placed geostationary at 36,000 kilometers. It completed its offer with Russian Soyuz launchers to low orbit, essential to meet its order book.
Gap
The year 2022 was to be that of the renewal of the range with the commissioning of Vega C, more efficient than the previous model, and Ariane 6, a versatile launcher able to cover both low orbit and geostationary, at prices 40% to 50% lower than those of Ariane 5 to be competitive with the Falcon rockets launched by Space X, the firm of Elon Musk. But nothing went as planned.
Starting with Soyuz. Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine on February 24, Moscow decided to stop all collaboration with Europe and the Russian teams left Kourou. No more launching rockets. It is impossible for Arianespace to transfer the satellites planned for the Soyuz missions to Vega C, the load plan being complete. Private customers then turned to other launch companies. Thus, to continue to deploy its constellation of satellites broadcasting high-speed Internet, the French OneWeb, a customer of Vega, has chosen the American SpaceX but also the Indian NewSpace India Limited.
By July 13, the qualifying firing had gone off without a hitch, making the failure of the first commercial flight even more confusing.
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