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Vega launch of ESA spaceplane postponed
by Staff Writers
Paris (ESA) Oct 29, 2014


ESA's Vega VV02 rocket is now fully assembled on its launch pad, 22 April, 2013. Final preparations are in full swing for the rocket's flight. Vega VV02 is the first of the five flights scheduled in ESA's Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment - VERTA - programme, which aims to demonstrate the flexibility of the launch system. At a minimum rate of two launches per year, the programme will allow the smooth introduction of Vega for commercial exploitation. VV02 will loft Proba-V, the first of four ESA missions, into space. Proba-V carries a reduced version of the Vegetation instrument currently flying on the Spot satellites to provide a daily overview of global vegetation growth. This first VERTA flight will also demonstrate Vega's capability to launch multiple payloads. The second payload is the Vietnam Natural Resources, Environment and Disaster Monitoring Satellite (VNREDSAT) built by Astrium for the Vietnamese government. Vega VV02 is scheduled for liftoff from the Spaceport on 4 May, 2013 (GMT). Image courtesy ESA-S. Corvaja, 2013.

The Vega launch of ESA's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, due on 18 November from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, has been postponed to allow for additional analyses of the Vega flight trajectory.

For this mission, instead of heading north into a polar orbit, as on previous flights, Vega will head eastwards to release the spaceplane into a suborbital path reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean to test new technologies for future autonomous controlled reentry for return missions.

This trajectory is unprecedented for Vega and therefore more information is being generated on the performance of the launch vehicle, should an anomaly occur after liftoff.

As a result, IXV's launch on Vega is postponed to a date to be defined in the coming weeks.

It will take about 100 minutes for IXV to complete its journey. Lofted by Vega to an altitude of 320 km, it will separate and carry on to attain an altitude of around 420 km.

This will allow it to reach a speed of 7.5 km/s when reentering the atmosphere at an altitude of 120 km - fully representative of any return mission from low orbit.

IXV will collect a large amount of data during its hypersonic and supersonic flight, while being controlled by thrusters and aerodynamic flaps.

The craft will then deploy a parachute to slow its descent for a safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery by the Nos Aries ship to return to Europe for further analysis.


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SPACEMART
Molten metals in spin cycle on ESA's centrifuge
Paris (ESA) Oct 20, 2014
The experimenters stared through bulletproof glass at the whirling 8 m-diameter centrifuge. Never mind the shaking or stirring of drink cocktails - what happens when you spin a cocktail of molten metal? ESA's Large Diameter Centrifuge provides research teams with easy access to hypergravity. Based at ESA's technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, it can spin at up to 67 revolutions ... read more


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