By Murdo Morrison2020-12-23T22:36:00+00:00
Italy’s 60-year-old space sector suffered a setback on 15 November, when an Arianespace Vega launcher, built by the country’s rocket propulsion champion Avio, veered off course 8min after launch from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana and plunged into the Atlantic along with its payload of two satellites. It was the second mission failure of a Vega rocket in 18 months.
Source: ASI
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano aboard the International Space Station
An inquiry into the failure of mission VV17, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and operator Arianespace, was underway at time of writing, with evidence pointing to an integration problem during assembly of the electro-mechanical actuator system on the nozzle of the launcher’s fourth and final stage, causing the rocket’s trajectory to degrade just after the stage had ignited.