Centre européen pour la construction de lanceurs d'engins spatiaux
Arianespace is a multinational company and a leading commercial launch service provider, marketing and operating launch vehicles like Ariane 5, Soyuz, and Vega, and the upcoming Ariane 6. As a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, it plays a crucial role in providing independent access to space, particularly for European organizations and governments. Arianespace launches missions from the Guiana Space Centre and works with partners like the European Space Agency (ESA) and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). Key activities include preparing missions, managing customer relations, and offering a wide range of space-based applications, including telecommunications, science, navigation, and Earth observation.
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The 2020-12-29 mission was the fifth Arianespace flight in 2020 using the medium-lift Soyuz vehicle.
Arianespace launched the Soyuz vehicle on 2020-12-29 to deliver the French CSO-2 Earth observation satellite into Sun-synchronous orbit.
Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate launched a Soyuz from Vostochny Cosmodrome 11 days before the CSO-2 mission to deliver 36 OneWeb satellites.
With the launch of 36 OneWeb satellites on Flight ST29, Arianespace had orbited a total of 239 spacecraft from Airbus Defence and Space.
Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate launched an additional 34 OneWeb satellites on Soyuz Flight ST28 on 2020-03-20.
Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate launched 34 OneWeb satellites from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Soyuz Flight ST27 on 2020-02-07.
Arianespace and Starsem have an amended launch contract with OneWeb to perform 15 more Soyuz launches through 2021 and 2022.
OneWeb concluded a revised contract with Arianespace in September that covers 16 Soyuz launches at a pace of roughly once a month to deploy a 648-satellite constellation.
Before the VV17 failure the next Vega launch, VV18, was scheduled for February 2021 and Arianespace expects that launch to take place by the end of March 2021.
The European Space Agency completed a joint investigation with Arianespace on 2020-12-18 into the 2020-11-16 failure of Vega mission VV17.
Arianespace’s backlog of payloads remaining to be launched for Airbus Defence and Space, excluding remaining OneWeb satellites, counts 22 additional payloads.
Arianespace and ESA set up an Independent Enquiry Commission (IEC) following the launch failure.
A task force led by ESA and Arianespace began implementing the roadmap proposed by the IEC in response to the Vega VV17 mission loss.
Arianespace announced the loss of the Vega VV17 mission on November 17.
Italy launched the first of the initial second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed satellites in December 2019 from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana aboard a Soyuz rocket booked through Arianespace.
The second satellite from that initial second-generation batch is scheduled to launch from the Guiana Space Center in late 2021 on an Arianespace-operated Vega C.
Synspective originally contracted Arianespace to launch StriX-α on a Vega rocket but signed a contract with Rocket Lab in April after Vega launch schedule delays caused by a July 2019 Vega launch failure.
Space Rider’s planned 2023 launch is to be aboard a next-generation Vega C rocket built by Avio and operated by Arianespace, and that launch is not covered under the 2020-12-09 contract.
Soyuz is operated side-by-side at the Spaceport with Arianespace's Ariane 5 and Vega launch vehicles.
Airbus signed a contract with Arianespace on 2020-12-07 to launch a four-satellite optical Earth observation constellation aboard a Vega C rocket in 2023.