A European Vega-C rocket will launch tomorrow carrying the Sentinel-1C mission into orbit in the rocket’s first return to flight since it failed in 2022. The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching this Earth-monitoring satellite from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and you can watch along as the event is live-streamed.
The launch is scheduled for 4:20 p.m. ET/1:20 p.m. PT on Wednesday, December 4, with coverage beginning at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT. You can watch on ESA’s Web TV using the video embedded below:
Sentinel-1C is the third Earth-observation satellite launched as part of the the Copernicus program. It uses radar for day and night imagery across the land mass and oceans of the world. The data is used for projects in environmental management, disaster response, and climate change research. Previous satellites Sentinel-1A launched and Sentinel-1B launched in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
The launch will be an important test for the Vega-C rocket on the international stage. The rocket was debuted in July 2022, when it successfully carried a bevy of satellites into orbit and hopes were high that it could replace Europe’s aging Vega rocket.
However, the second flight of the Vega-C in December 2022 failed, with both the rocket and its satellite payloads lost, in an unfortunate step back for the European space program. Subsequent investigation found that the problem was a faulty nozzle on the second stage that had a manufacturing defect.
Since then, the rocket has been grounded, but as engineers have redesigned the nozzle and performed two firing tests this year, ESA has declared that the rocket is now ready for another flight. At 35 meters tall and with a weight of 210 tonnes, the Vega-C is smaller than Europe’s other new rocket, the Ariane 6. Europe has expressed its desire for its own launch capabilities rather than relying on U.S.-based companies such as SpaceX.
“This is an important step for Europe’s independent access to space, or, let’s say, reestablishment of this independent access to space,” said Toni Tolker-Nielsen, the ESA’s director of Space Transportation at a briefing. “It is a very important step for Europe that we can return the Vega C to flight.”
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.