Arianespace Vega Successfully Launches KazEOSat-1 Satellite in Orbit
On Tuesday, April 29 at 10:35 pm local time in French Guiana, Arianespace successfully launched the third Vega launcher from the Guiana Space Center (CSG), orbiting the KazEOSat-1 (DZZ-HR) satellite for the government of Kazakhstan within the scope of a turnkey contract with Airbus Defence and Space.
Third successful Vega launch from CSG
With Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega all operated from the Guiana Space Center, Arianespace is the only launch services operator in the world capable of launching all types of payloads into all orbits, from the largest to the smallest geostationary satellites, clusters of satellites for constellations and missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
Vega is designed to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) or Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). It should quickly prove to be the benchmark launcher in its class, especially on the emerging market for Earth observation satellites.
Following this third Vega launch, Arianespace now has a backlog of 10 satellites to be launched, half of them commercial launches in export markets for government agencies. To meet growing demand, Arianespace signed a tripartite agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA), and ELV, the industrial prime contractor for Vega, on November 20, 2013. The agreement provides for the procurement of 10 additional launchers, in addition to the three already under production as part of ESA’s VERTA (VEga Research and Technology Accompaniment) program, thus covering identified launch requirements until 2019.
Arianespace and the Earth observation market
With this latest successful launch, Arianespace is continuing its contribution to spaceborne systems supporting sustainable development, only three weeks after the launch of Sentinel-1A, by a Soyuz launcher, the first satellite in the European Commission’s Copernicus program.
KazEOSat-1 (DZZ-HR) is the 51st satellite with an Earth observation payload to be launched by Arianespace, whose launch manifest includes ten more EO satellites, which will use all three launchers in its family.
