Kourou (AFP)

The European Vega rocket, which had lost two satellites in the fall of 2020, "perfectly succeeded" this time on its mission on the night of Wednesday to Thursday from Kourou, Guyana, announced the National Center for Space Studies (CNES).

The launch was "perfectly successful", rejoiced by CNES, at the end of the operations.

It is a "successful return to flight" for Vega, also welcomed by another statement Stéphane Israël, the executive chairman of Arianespace, following the mission which lasted 1 hour and 42 minutes.

Vega has placed at 628 km altitude Pléiades Neo 3 (920 kg), the first very high resolution satellite of the new Earth observation constellation entirely financed and manufactured by its future operator, Airbus.

Vega has also placed five small satellites through its deployment and "shared launches" service, SSMS, an affordable launch offering developed with funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union.

The satellites put into orbit are Norsat-3, an observation microsatellite for the benefit of the Norwegian space agency and four cubesats, for the operators Eutelsat, NanoAvionics / Aurora Insight and Spire.

The shooting took place at 22.50 local time, 1.50 GMT.

According to Arianespace, the launcher's production operations and the preparation for firing had been carried out according to "all the recommendations" which had been "formulated" by the independent commission of inquiry set up after the failure of the Vega flight to l fall 2020.

The rocket was stranded in the sea on November 17, 2020, shortly after taking off, with on board a Spanish optical imaging satellite, SEOSAT-Ingenio, and the French Taranis satellite, the first scientific observation instrument.

The failure of the November mission was due to a manufacturing problem during the integration of the fourth stage of the rocket, manufactured by Avio in Italy.

The wiring error was not detected by the controls.

With a lifespan of ten years, the Pléiades Neo constellation will offer increased geolocation capacity and great "responsiveness" according to Arianespace, for Earth observation, particularly during natural disasters.

NorSat-3 will carry an experimental navigation radar detector to increase the detection capabilities of ships.

This is the third launch operated by Arianespace in 2021, following the two Soyuz launches of March 25 and April 26, 2021 from the Vostochny space base in Russia, and the 18th launch of a Vega since its debut in 2012.

© 2021 AFP