Tonight's Vega launch has been scrubbed due to unfavorable high-altitude winds over the launch base.

May 05: With high-altitude winds still troublesome over French Guiana, Arianespace officials have put off the flight of Europe's second Vega launcher until at least Monday night. Photo credit: ESA/Stephane Corvaja

Description:

• Arianespace's Vega rocket made a second successful flight on May 7, 2013. Flying north-northwest from Kourou, the three solid stages reached a near-orbital trajectory of around -370 x 226 km. Stage 3 reentered over the Canadian Arctic around 0228 UTC. The AVUM liquid fourth stage then made a first burn to about 289 x 820 km at 0217 UTC; at 0300 UTC a second burn circularized the orbit at apogee and the upper payload, Proba-V, was deployed into a 787 x 828 km x 98.7 deg orbit. A third burn at 0310 UTC lowered perigee, leading to a 670 x 815 km orbit. At 0357 UTC the lid of the dual payload adapter, Vespa, was ejected, and at 0400 UTC AVUM's burn 4 recircularized the orbit at 669 x 673 km x 98.1 deg. The lower payload VNREDSAT-1 was ejected at 0404 UTC, with the 1U cubesat ESTCube-1 deployed three minutes later. At 0423 UTC the AVUM stage was scheduled to make a deorbit burn for disposal in the South Pacific, probably reentering around 0510 UTC west of southern Chile.