The planned launch of a Soyuz rocket from Guyana on Sunday, November 30, with passenger Falcon Eye, a United Arab Emirates military satellite, has been postponed due to unfavorable weather, Arianespace announced.
The launcher was to take off at 10:33 p.m. local (01:33 a.m. Monday in Paris) from the Sinnamary launch pad, a town bordering Kourou.
The attempt was postponed because of
"a risk of lightning strike in flight"
by a thunderstorm, Arianespace told AFP.
The chronology of operations was stopped
"at 3 minutes and 54 seconds"
before the end of the countdown, according to the group.
At around 10 p.m., a final weather point was nevertheless favorable according to Arianespace, which announced a new attempt on Monday evening at the same time if the weather permits.
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For this mission, the client (the United Arab Emirates) wanted to keep the identity of the satellite a secret until the last moment, a very unusual request even in the hushed world of space.
But according to the local press and corroborating sources, the passenger on board Soyuz is a military satellite of the Emirates, renamed Falcon Eye on the occasion of this launch.
In July 2019, Falcon Eye 1, an optical satellite for an Earth observation program, took place on board the Vega light launcher.
The latter had suffered its first failure, at the end of its fifteenth shot, when it left its trajectory, and the launcher had to be destroyed in flight in order to avoid a risk of fallout on an inhabited area of Guyana.
The satellite was then supposed to meet the needs of the UAE armed forces and provide imagery to the commercial market.
Falcon Eye 2, an identical satellite in the program, was initially to be launched subsequently on another Vega rocket, still for the Emirates.
But according to the local press, Falcon Eye 2, renamed Falcon Eye for this new launch, was ultimately taken aboard a Soyuz rocket, now considered to be more reliable than Vega, two of the last three missions of which have resulted in failures, the last after a takeoff on November 15.