Company apologises after rocket carrying UAE satellite fails
A rocket carrying a UAE satellite failed to make it to space.
Flight VV15, an Arianespace Vega rocket, lifted off from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana on Thursday at about 6am UAE time, but six minutes later, the control room lost the telemetry link with the rocket.
Luce Fabreguettes, executive vice president of missions, operations and purchasing at Arianespace, apologised to the UAE for the loss of the reconnaissance satellite Falcon Eye 1.
“As you have seen about two minutes after lift-off ... a major anomaly occurred resulting in the loss of the mission,” she said.
“On behalf of Arianespace I wish to express my deepest apologies to our customers for the loss of their payload and tell them how sorry I am.”
She said a clearer picture of what went wrong would be available after crews retrieve flight data.
State news agency Wam said plans to launch the Falcon Eye 2 satellite were under way.
Falcon Eye 1 was meant to orbit Earth for the next 10 years, providing high-definition images from around the world for military and civilian use.
Built by Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia in Toulouse, France, the satellite arrived in French Guiana last Monday.
It was originally due to be launched last Saturday, then last Sunday, but both launches were delayed because of high winds.
Images taken by Falcon Eye 1 were going to be used for mapping, agricultural monitoring, urban planning, urban regulation and natural disaster prevention and management.