Everything is ready for the second launch of the year of Vega, the European rocket that is built in the Avio plants in Colleferro near Rome, scheduled at 03:47 Italian time from the European base in Kourou (French Guiana).
It will bring into orbit Pléiades Neo 4, the second satellite of an innovative constellation for Earth observation, and 4 other small satellites including Ledsat built by the Sapienza University of Rome for educational purposes with the support of the Italian Space Agency (Asi ).
10 months after the anomaly recorded during the VV17 mission, the European rocket Vega returns to fly for the second time in 2021 and will do so carrying 5 'passengers', for a total of 1,029 kg, which will be released on two orbits different in a launch that should finish in just under 2 hours. The first passenger to be released into orbit will be Pléiades Neo 4, the second of the four satellites that will make up the mini-constellation entirely built and managed by the European company Airbus and which will provide images of any point on the earth's surface at a resolution of only 30 centimeters. approximately 2 times a day. Once completed, the constellation will be one of the most advanced in the world for this kind of observation and will provide commercial services to institutions and companies.
A few minutes later the other 4 passengers will be released, including 3 small cubesat satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA): Sunstorm, to investigate the potential of some new technologies for studying solar flares, Radcube, to test some solutions to measure radiation in space and Ledsat, an educational project carried out by Sapienza researchers as part of the European educational program Fly Your Satellite !. The last of the passengers on board is Bro-4, the fourth minisatellite of a constellation created by a French start-up designed to identify the radio signals of all 'active' ships and boats on the planet and which will provide a series of services in the future. for surveillance and navigation.
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