VEGA, a small launch vehicle

Several studies have been performed in Europe aiming to promote the full de velopment of a small launch vehicle to put into orbit one ton class spacecr afts. But during the last ten years, the european workforce was mainly orie nted towards the qualification of the heavy class ARIANE 5 launch vehicle. Then, due also to lack of visibility on this reduced segment of market, whe n comparing with the geosatcom market, no proposal was sufficiently attract ive to get from the potentially interrested authorities a clear go-ahead, i .e. a financial committment. The situation is now rapidly evolving. Several european states, among them ITALY and FRANCE, are now convinced of the necessity of the availability of such a transportation system, an important argument to promote small missi ons, using small satellites. Application market will be mainly scientific e xperiments and earth observation; some telecommunications applications may be also envisaged such as placement of little LEO constellation satellites, or replacement after failure of big LEO constellation satellites. FIAT AVIO and AEROSPATIALE have proposed to their national agencies the dev elopment of such a small launch vehicle, named VEGA. The paper presents the story of the industrial proposal, and the present st atus of the project: Mission spectrum, technical definition, launch service and performance, target development plan and target recurring costs, as we ll as the industrial organisation for development, procurement, marketing a nd operations. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reser ved.