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Europe's New Small Launcher Vega Successfully Completed Firing Test at the Salto Di
:: 01 April, 2008
On 27 March 2008, the second stage motor for Vega - Europe's new small launcher - successfully completed a static firing test at the Salto Di Quirra Inter-force Test Range in Sardinia, Italy.
Ignition of the qualification model of the Zefiro 23 solid-propellant rocket motor occurred at 13:15 CET. In just 14 seconds, the thrust reached 930 kN, equivalent to nearly 95 tonnes of force.
This was the second and final firing test for the Zefiro 23, in which over 24 tonnes of propellant was consumed with a flame temperature of over 3000 K. The burn lasted approximately 75 seconds and initial results show the test to be a success.
Performance as predicted
The combustion chamber pressure and motor thrust were well within the test prediction. Large amplitude movements of the thrust vector control system were executed - simulating worst-case manoeuvres - and the performance was very satisfactory. Additionally, modifications implemented in the nozzle design following the anomaly experienced during the previous Zefiro 9 test were proven to be effective.
“The success of this test demonstrates the soundness of the design and rewards the enormous efforts of the team that has worked on the project,” stated Francesco Betti, Head of the Design Department at Avio's Space Division.
The motor will now be transported back to Avio's facility at Colleferro (Italy) for a thorough inspection of all its components and the data obtained from the 400 sensors deployed during the test will be analysed in more detail.
“The project team will rendezvous at Salto Di Quirra in June for the Zefiro 9 firing test,” announced Paolo Bellomi, Technical Director of ELV, the Vega launcher prime contractor.
Two motors now qualified
In the past 27 months, four Vega test firings have taken place at Salto Di Quirra, each one a milestone in the development of the Vega launcher. The Zefiro 23 is the second Vega solid rocket motor to achieve qualification, following the P80 first stage motor, which completed qualification testing in December 2007.
“The teams of Avio, ELV, SABCA APP and of the Integrated Programme Team of ESA, CNES and ASI did a great job. This success paves the way for the Vega maiden flight,” said Stefano Bianchi, Head of the Vega Programme at ESA.
About Vega
Vega is a single body launcher composed of three solid-propellant stages and a liquid-propellant upper module. It is approximately 30 metres high, and weighs a total of 137 tonnes at lift off. Vega's reference launch capacity is to carry a 1500 kg payload into a 700 km-altitude polar orbit, but the launcher is also designed to serve a wide range of scientific and Earth observation missions.
About European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1974, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 17 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of about 1,900 with an annual budget of about €2.9 billion in 2007.
ESA's main spaceport is Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana (French territory). It is close to the equator, hence commercially important orbits are easier to access. ESA became the market leader in commercial space launches in the 1990s. In recent years, ESA has also established itself as a major player in space exploration.
ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, and the European Astronauts Centre (EAC), that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany.
After the Second World War, many European scientists had left Western Europe in order to work either in the US or the Soviet Union. Although the booming recovering process of the 1950s made it possible for Western European countries to invest into research and specifically into space related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two major superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Edoardo Amaldi and Pierre Auger, two prominent members of the Western European scientific community at that time, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency. The meeting was attended by scientific representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey (UK).
The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned to develop a launch system ELDO (European Launch Development Organisation) and the precursor of the European Space Agency, and ESRO (European Space Research Organisation) that was established on March 20, 1964 per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962. From 1968 to 1972 ESRO celebrated its first successes. Seven research satellites were brought into orbit, all by US launch systems.
The ESRO's successor organisation ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre, based in Noordwijk, the Netherlands) is still a part of ESA, though ESA itself is a much bigger organisation today. The ESA in its current form was founded in 1974, when ESRO was merged with ELDO. The ESA was constituted of 10 founding members: Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, a space probe monitoring gamma-ray emissions in the universe.
In figure, Zefiro 23 firing test
