Vega VV23 liftoff

On 8 October at 22:36 local time (9 October at 02:36 BST, 03:36 CEST) the 23rd Vega flight saw 12 satellites launched into Earth orbit. The rocket’s main passengers were the Earth observing THEOS-2 satellite and the meteorological satellite Triton.

THEOS-2 (THailand Earth Observation System-2) is an observation satellite manufactured by Airbus in for the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency of Thailand. THEOS-2 is the largest of the two satellites in the series and will provide the Ministry of Agriculture of Thailand with information on water resources, weather and land use for planning and management.

Triton (formerly known as FORMOSAT-7R) is a Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) satellite that will collect signals that bounce off the sea surface to help scientists calculate wind field over our oceans. This data will be shared with Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration, contributing to the forecast of typhoon intensity and their trajectory.

Vega is ESA’s small launcher – first launched in 2012 – specialising in placing medium-sized satellites into low Earth polar orbits that are ideal for scientific and Earth observation missions as well as ride sharing – putting multiple satellites into orbit on a single flight. It is a separate launch vehicle from the newer Vega-C and the two launchers share only one stage-type between them. On this commercial flight, ESA was involved in developing five of the eight secondary missions.