The first flight of the Vega-C carrier rocket was successful_China IT News

IT House reported on July 14 that due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, ESA no longer uses Russian rockets, so it needs to fill a huge gap in capability.

At 21:13 on July 13, Beijing time, ESA’s Vega-C rocket was launched for the first time at the Kuru Space Center, successfully performing a “low-Earth orbit” mission.

IT House learned that this is the 83rd global space launch in 2022, the second for ESA, and the first for Vega.

European Space Agency Administrator Ashbach: “Vega C’s main mission is to launch satellites of up to 2.4 tons into low Earth orbit, which is the orbit that most Earth monitoring satellites operate in. Earth monitoring satellites are really taking the pulse of our planet. , which can be used in agriculture, forestry, low-cost detection, natural disaster monitoring, and climate change.”

“There will be high launch demand in Europe over the next few years and beyond, and Vega-C and Ariane-6 will be our workhorses,” Ashbach said.

As an upgraded version of the Vega rocket, the load capacity and flexibility of the Vega C rocket have been greatly improved. According to reports, the mission carried an Italian-developed laser relativistic satellite LARES-2 and six small cube satellites. The satellite is a passive satellite with a laser mirror to measure the distortion of space-time caused by the Earth’s rotation, verifying Einstein’s theory of general relativity (Lense-Thirring effect).

According to public information, “Vega-C” is improved on the basis of the basic Vega rocket and is a four-stage carrier rocket. The rocket is 34.8 meters long, has a take-off mass of 210 tons, and its 700-kilometer polar orbit has a capacity of 2.2 tons.

“Vega-C” core stage 1 to core stage 3 are solid rockets, core stage 4 (upper stage) is a liquid rocket, the diameter of the first stage of the core is 3.4 meters, equipped with a P120C solid rocket engine, the mass of propellant is 143.6 tons; The second stage is equipped with a Zefiro-40 solid motor with a propellant mass of 36.2 tons; the core three stage is equipped with a Zefiro-9 solid motor with a propellant mass of 10.5 tons; the core fourth stage is equipped with a AVUM + nitrous oxide/hydrazine Liquid rocket engine with a propellant mass of 0.74 tons.

Compared with the basic model of Vega, the length of “Vega-C” has increased by 4.8 meters, the take-off mass has increased by 73 tons, the maximum diameter has increased by 0.4 meters, and the capacity of the 700-kilometer polar orbit has increased by 0.8 tons. After service, it will replace the basic Vega. type to perform space launch missions.