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The slender single-body rocket, which does not have boosters
strapped to its side unlike larger vehicles, streaked into the
night sky at a launch base in French Guiana at 10.50 p.m. local
time on Sept 4 (0150 GMT on Sept 5), streamed images showed.
The launch ends a 12-year career for the small launch vehicle,
designed by Italy's Avio. It is being replaced by the updated
Vega C, which is due to return to service later this year after
being grounded following a launch failure with the loss of two
powerful imaging satellites in December 2022.
Built by Airbus Defense & Space, Sentinel-2C will replace
Sentinel-2A, which is part of a pair of satellites operating
within the Copernicus program.
It will be used to study deforestation, urban development and
emergencies such as forest fires, floods or volcanic eruptions,
Mauro Facchini, head of the Copernicus unit at the European
Commission, told reporters before the launch.
The European Space Agency, which partners the EU on the project,
has said Copernicus is the world's largest environmental
monitoring effort.
Together, the programme's six families of Sentinel satellites
aim to read the planet's "vital signs" from carbon dioxide to
wave height or temperatures of land and oceans.
In 2022, Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite images highlighted
severe drought damage to Italy's Po Valley.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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