TAMPA, Fla. — Arianespace launched a second satellite for the Pléiades Neo imaging constellation Aug. 16 on a Vega rocket.
The Pléiades Neo 4 satellite lifted off from French Guiana 9:47 p.m. Eastern, successfully separating from the rocket about an hour later.
The satellite will join Pléiades Neo 3, which launched on a Vega April 28, at 620-kilometer sun-synchronous polar orbit.
Two satellites enable daily imaging of any place on Earth at 30-centimeter native resolution, according to Airbus Defence and Space, the constellation’s builder and operator.
Two more Pléiades Neo satellites are slated to launch together on an upgraded Vega C rocket in the first half of 2022 to complete the constellation.
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With four satellites, Airbus said the constellation would be able to visit any point on Earth between two and four times a day. Pléiades Neo will supplement synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) and lower resolution optical spacecraft that Airbus also operates.
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The Breizh Reconnaissance Orbiter-4 (BRO-4), a maritime surveillance nanosatellite for French startup Unseenlabs, was also on the Aug. 16 Vega flight.
BRO-4 is the fourth satellite in a radio-frequency geolocation constellation that Unseenlabs aims to grow to 20-25 satellites by 2025.
Three cubesats for the European Space Agency also joined the Vega mission:
- Ledsat, an educational project from the University of Sapienza in Italy, aims to test technology for tracking low Earth orbit satellites.
- Radcube from Hungarian manufacturer C3S aims to demonstrate radiation instruments for monitoring space weather.
- Finnish space solutions firm Reaktor Space Lab’s Sunstorm has a solar X-ray spectrometer for detecting material erupting from the Sun’s surface.
The mission is Vega’s first since returning to flight April 28, following a Nov. 16 failure that an investigation pinned on improperly connected cables in the rocket’s upper stage.