Vega-C
Avio S.p.A
Vega-C is a single-body rocket nearly 35 m high with that weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad. As with Vega, its main elements are three solid-propellant stages, an upper stage powered by a reignitable liquid-propellant engine and a payload fairing. Vega-C's P120C first stage replaces Vega’s smaller P80 to provide a significant increase in thrust at liftoff. It is also used as boosters (2 or 4) for the Ariane 6 rocket.
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🚀 About the rocket: Vega-C
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Italian launch services provider Avio has successfully completed its second Vega-C flight of 2026, deploying the European Commission’s third Sentinel-3 Earth observation satellite and ESA’s FLEX mission. The Vega-C rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Centre at 01:21 UTC on 15 September. Following two burns of the rocket’s AVUM+ upper stage, Sentinel-3C was deployed […] The post Avio Launches Second Successful Vega C Flight of 2026 appeared first on European Spaceflight.
Plants may look still and silent, but every leaf is constantly responding to its environment.
Two Earth observation satellites – ESA’s Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) satellite, and the third satellite for the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission – are encapsulated inside the nose cone of a Vega-C launcher and are awaiting liftoff at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
From the ESA Blogs.
From the ESA Blogs.