Sentinel-2A launch atop Vega VV05 June 23rd

[Hcube]

Hey, Arianespace will be launching sentinel-2A on June 23rd atop a VV05 Vega rocket from the Kourou spaceport at 01:51:58 GMT, 22:51:58 Kourou Time and 21:51:58 Washington time.

Sentinel-2A is a satellite of the Copernicus program, wich is an Earth-mapping and observation program for agriculture, soil studies and data from the coasts of the oceans.

Stream will be on the Arianespace website, with commentary starting at T-15minutes.

Video of Sentinel-2A being enclosed in fairing and mounted on the launcher :

Video of sentinel-2A's solar panels deployment test : (funny: it only has one big array on one side, not one per side!)

Sadly launch will occur at 3 a.m. in my place and i have an exam the next morning at 7:00, so i won't be watching it :/

Edited June 21, 2015 by Hcube

[Scotius]

Thanks for the head up I love watching Vega launches - this rockets streaks up like bat out of Hell

[Hcube]

Thanks for the head up I love watching Vega launches - this rockets streaks up like bat out of Hell

yeah right ! ? it's a very funny launcher.

Actually its TWR is not that high : it's about 1.7... although i agree it does look like Vega lifts off much faster than Ariane 5, wich has a TWR of 1.8 depending on the payload ! i'll have to watch two clips side by side and compare...

[sgt_flyer]

Well, guess it depends on how close the cameras are from the launcher

[Perry Apsis]

That fairing probably weighs like 9 tons. Definitely not worth it. :-)

[Hcube]

That fairing probably weighs like 9 tons. Definitely not worth it. :-)

You are WAAAAAY off. The regular fairing is made of aluminium honeycomb and its mass is *490* kilograms.

EDIT : about a KSP fairing ? oooooh alriiiight

Edited June 22, 2015 by Hcube

[viktor19]

You are WAAAAAY off. The regular fairing is made of aluminium honeycomb and its mass is *490* kilograms.

I think he was referring to stock KSP fairings.

[Kryten]

Webcast is starting imminently, launch in about fifteen minutes;

http://www.arianespace.tv

[JacobT11]

Man, Vega's quick off the pad. Blinked and I almost missed it.

[Bill Phil]

Vega seems interesting. Almost 2 tonnes to LEO and all solids... Except for a maneuvering stage.

[sgt_flyer]

Vega's a nice testbed for experiments on SRBs the P80 (first stage) is the biggest single segment SRB in use (the systems it uses (notably the steering system) are a simplified and cheaper version of those used on Ariane V multi segment srbs.

And it will be a great use to test the future ariane VI single segment SRB's (future version of vega is planned to use one of those SRBs as a replacement of the P80)

Those single segment really allows to lower costs on SRB manufacturing & assembly compared to multi segmented (and as they don't need seals between segments, that removes some inherent risks of SRBs)

[Hcube]

Damn my stupid english exam ! i missed the launch !

Gonna watch the replay i guess...

[Lukaszenko]

I kept hoping they would show the map view with the ballistic trajectory.

How can they fly the thing without it? Maybe they have dual monitors