Artist's view of Vega-C

Vega is designed to cope with a wide range of missions and payload configurations in order to respond to different market opportunities.

Vega-C main objectives are :

• to strengthen Vega’s position in the market in the short to medium term;
• to increase launch vehicle performance by at least 300 kg and increase the flexibility for multiple payloads missions;
• to be able to introduce the Vega C configuration to the market from end-2018 at a cost no higher than today’s Vega, profiting from the shared development with Ariane 6 of the first-stage motor;
• to reduce the dependency on non-European sources in launcher production at no extra cost;
• to respond better to long-term institutional needs;
• to help maintain European industrial engineering capabilities, particularly in propulsion, in parallel to the Vega and Vega-C exploitation.

Additional improvements are being studied to enable Vega to carry micro- and nanosatellites in order to be cost-effective in this emerging market.