Vega C VV21 liftoff 13 July 2022

ESA’s Vega-C rocket lifted off for its inaugural flight – VV21 – at 15:13 CEST (13:13 UTC, 10:13 local time) from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

With new first and second stages and an uprated fourth stage, Vega-C increases performance to about 2.3 t in a reference 700 km polar orbit, from the 1.5 t capability of its predecessor, Vega.

For this flight, Vega-C’s payload was LARES-2, a scientific mission of the Italian space agency ASI, and six research CubeSats from France, Italy and Slovenia.