Today saw the second successful launch of the new launch vehicle Vega, the smallest of the whole European fleet and capable of placing in orbit up to 1.5 tons for scientific and earth-observation missions in polar and low-earth orbits.

The launch, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, was watched on the spot by GMV personnel. Its main payload was the Proba-V satellite together with two smaller satellites: VNEREDSat-1A and ESTCube-1.

This VEGA launch now forms part of the Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment (VERTA) program of the European Space Agency (ESA), representing the debut of the launcher’s new Flight Program Software Alternative (FPSA).

GMV has been playing a very important role in various areas of Vega’s FPSA over the last three years, especially in Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) design and validation, with responsibility for developing both the guidance and navigation algorithms and also the Roll and Altitude Control System (RACS).

GMV personnel have carried out various tasks within their respective range of expertise, such as requirement analysis, architecture design, detailed algorithm design and preliminary validation of software prototypes within VEGA’s flight simulator.

GMV has also been responsible for FPSA’s Software Quality Assurance (SW-QA) while providing support for Reliability, Availability Maintainability and Safety (RAMS) activities as part of the software development team.