[SatNews] Activities for Arianespace’s next light-lift Vega flight from the Spaceport are now fully underway following this week’s delivery of the DZZ-HR payload to French Guiana—joining the mission’s launcher, which is well advanced in its preparations.

DZZ-HR is unloaded from a Boeing 747 following the cargo jetliner’s arrival at Félix Eboué Airport near Cayenne, the capital city of French Guiana.
Photo courtesy of Arianespace.

The high-resolution Earth observation satellite was transported by a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft to Félix Eboué Airport near French Guiana’s capital city of Cayenne, where it was unloaded for transfer by road to the Spaceport. DZZ-HR was produced by Airbus Defence and Space for the Republic of Kazakhstan’s government. The 900kg-class spacecraft will be delivered by Vega into Sun-synchronous orbit, from which it is to provide a complete range of civil applications – including monitoring of natural and agricultural resources, provision of mapping data and support for rescue operations.

This upcoming flight—designated VV03 in Arianespace’s numbering system—will mark the third Vega liftoff from French Guiana to date. Vega’s first launch (VV01) was a qualification mission performed in February 2012, carrying the LARES laser relativity satellite, a small ALMASat-1 technology microsatellite demonstrator and seven CubeSats.   It was followed by Flight VV02 in May 2013, which orbited the Proba-V, VNREDSat-1 and ESTCube-1 satellites. Developed in a European Space Agency program led by Italy’s ASI space agency and industrial prime contractor ELV SpA., Vega was conceived for the orbiting of small- to medium-sized satellites, including institutional and scientific spacecraft.

Follow Arianespace's launch activity at http://www.arianespace.com/.