(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s Vega-C rocket launched for the first time since a failure two years ago in a win for the continent’s struggling space industry.
The rocket, built by Italian manufacturer Avio SpA, blasted off from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana around 6:20 pm local time on Thursday. The vehicle was carrying the Copernicus Sentinel-1C satellite, designed for Earth observation.
The satellite successfully separated from the launcher about 1 hour and 44 minutes after launch.
“Tonight is a double success for Europe,” said Arianespace Chief Executive Officer Stephane Israel, referring to the Vega-C and the Sentinel-1C.
Launches of the Vega-C had been on hold after an attempted flight in December 2022 ended in failure, with the European Space Agency citing a nozzle issue in its motor.
The rocket that launched today featured an improved nozzle and the motor this year went through successful firing tests in May and October that “demonstrated the motor’s ability to perform reliably under different pressure conditions and burn durations,” according to ESA before the launch.
The successful mission comes after the inaugural flight in July of ESA’s long-awaited Ariane 6, a larger rocket intended to compete with vehicles such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Despite a glitch that led to the rocket’s auxiliary power unit shutting down, that mission marked a key milestone for a continent which has had difficulty keeping pace with innovative startups such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Long Beach, California-based Rocket Lab USA Inc.
Launch service provider Arianespace had hoped to have a second Ariane 6 launch before the end of the year but has pushed that mission to sometime between the middle of February and end of March in 2025, Israel said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Nov. 19.
Thursday’s Vega-C mission was postponed by one day after Arianespace said it had to carry out further precautionary checks.
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