Our last launch of the week was an Arianespace Vega rocket on Tuesday, November 17 at 1:52 UTC.

This was the second launch after the failure of Vega flight VV15 in July 2019. That launch failed due to a now-corrected structural problem with the second stage. This week’s failure of Vega flight VV17 happened when the AVUM — the very last stage of the rocket that is used to put the satellites in orbit — tumbled out of control. Early analysis by Arianespace suggests that cables were installed incorrectly meaning that signals were sent to the wrong thrust vector control actuators. Both payloads, a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French atmospheric science satellite, were lost.

More Information

ESA press release 

Arianespace press release 

SpaceNews article