{"id":771184,"date":"2026-09-15T06:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T06:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/771184\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T06:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T06:52:15","slug":"vega-c-rocket-launches-2-european-earth-observing-satellites-to-orbit-from-south-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/771184\/","title":{"rendered":"Vega C rocket launches 2 European Earth-observing satellites to orbit from South America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two European Earth-observing spacecraft lifted off from South America tonight (Sept. 14).<\/p>\n

A Vega C rocket<\/a> carrying the FLEX and Copernicus-3C satellites launched from Europe’s Spaceport<\/a> in Kourou, French Guiana at 9:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 p.m. local time in Kourou and 0121 GMT on Sept. 15).<\/p>\n

Both FLEX and Sentinel-3C were deployed as planned. They were released at an altitude of about 509 miles (820 kilometers), and both were flying freely by 116 minutes after launch.<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

The Vega C rocket with its payloads \u2014\u00a0ESA’s FLEX satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C spacecraft \u2014 is seen inside an assembly building in French Guiana before launch. (Image credit: ESA-M. P\u00e9doussaut)<\/p>\n

The 875-pound (397-kilogram) FLEX will detect and monitor vegetation fluorescence, which explains its name (a shortening of “Fluorescence Explorer”). By doing so, it will map plant photosynthetic activity \u2014 something no satellite<\/a> can do at the moment, according to ESA.<\/p>\n

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FLEX’s data will be important not only “for a better understanding of the global carbon cycle, but also for agricultural management and food security,” ESA wrote in a FLEX mission desription<\/a>. “This is of particular relevance due to demand the growing world population is placing on the production of food.”<\/p>\n

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Sentinel-3C is part of the European Union’s Copernicus<\/a> Earth-observation program. The 2,520-pound (1,1143-kg) satellite will continue the Sentinel-3 line, which is aging but still going strong in low Earth orbit<\/a>; Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B, which launched in 2016 and 2018, respectively, remain active.<\/p>\n

“Like its two older siblings in orbit, Sentinel-3C carries a suite of cutting-edge instruments that measure systematically Earth\u2019s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere to monitor and understand large-scale global dynamics,” ESA wrote in a Sentinel-3C description<\/a>. “It provides essential information in near-real time for ocean and weather forecasting.”<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

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\"illustration\n<\/p>\n

Artist’s illustration of a Sentinel-3 satellite in orbit. (Image credit: ESA\/ATG medialab)<\/p>\n

The 115-foot-tall (35-meter-tall) Vega C debuted in July 2022 and had seven flights under its belt before today, six of them successful.<\/p>\n

The rocket was developed by the European Space Agency<\/a> and originally operated by the France-based company Arianespace. The Italian outfit Avio now runs the vehicle’s liftoffs, however; today’s launch was the second Avio has managed.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 9:35 p.m. ET with news of successful liftoff, then again at 1:10 a.m. ET with news of successful satellite deployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two European Earth-observing spacecraft lifted off from South America tonight (Sept. 14). A Vega C rocket carrying the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-771184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}