Corps
15 September 2026

Vega-C successfully launches Sentinel-3C and FLEX satellites

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On September 14th at 10.21 PM Kourou time (01.21 UTC; 03.21 AM CEST on September 15th), Avio successfully launched the Copernicus Sentinel-3C and the FLEX satellites.

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Texte

On September 14th at 10.21 PM Kourou time (01.21 UTC; 03.21 AM CEST on September 15th), Avio successfully launched the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite for the European Commission within the scope of a contract signed with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the FLEX satellites for ESA from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana with a Vega C launcher. 

The satellites were released into SunSynchronous Orbit at an altitude of about 810 km with an inclination of 98.6°. The duration of the launch (from lift-off to separation of the last satellite) has been 116 minutes.

 

Sentinel-3C is the third satellite of the Sentinel-3 mission of the European Commission Copernicus
programme, dedicated to monitoring the health of our planet by observing oceans, land, ice and
the atmosphere from space. 

 

FLEX is the eighth Earth Explorer mission developed by ESA’s FutureEO programme. It is
designed to monitor the health of vegetation from space by detecting the faint fluorescence
emitted by plants during photosynthesis, an otherwise invisible signal linked to plant
activity.

 

The mission, called VV30, has been the second Vega C launch operated by Avio.

 

More about the mission here.

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VV30_Decollage plan large_ZLV
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