• Launch controllers at the Guiana Space Center conducted a countdown rehearsal for the Vega rocket Jan. 26, 2012 one of the final opportunities for the launch team to practice procedures before the day of liftoff.
• During the rehearsal, workers retracted the Vega launch pad's 164-foot-tall mobile gantry, exposing the launcher at the European-run spaceport on South America's northeast coast.

Payload added to Vega rocket

Vega pictured inside the mobile gantry on the launch pad.

Launch.

Description:

• Vega's first launch, dubbed VV01, will mark the end of nine years of development by ESA and its partners, Italian space agency ASI, French space agency CNES and industry.
• The vehicle will lift off from the new Vega launch site at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, carrying nine satellites into orbit: the LARES laser relativity satellite and ALMASat-1 from ASI with seven CubeSats from European Universities.
• The mission will qualify the overall Vega system, including the vehicle, the ground infrastructure and operations from the launch campaign to the payload separation and disposal of the upper module.
• It will demonstrate the correct behaviour of all elements and functions of the launch system in real conditions. In particular, it will demonstrate the vehicle’s performances and payload services in flight, after completion of the qualification process on ground.
• Vega has three solid motor stages, P80FW, Zefiro 23, and the Zefiro 9A third stage. The Zefiro stages are built by Avio spA of Colleferro, Italy. Avio's main space motor plant was originally the Bombrini Parodi Delfino explosives factory (1912-1994) and later part of Fiat (1994-2003); I believe their first space motor was a communications satellite apogee motor built for the Europa rocket and later used for ESA's Geos-1.
• A Ukrainian-built RD-869 engine is used in the Avio fourth stage, the Attitude and Vernier Upper Module (AVUM), which uses liquid propellants (UDMH/N2O4). P80FW is developed by the Europropulsion joint venture (Avio plus France's SNECMA). The overall launch vehicle is produced by ELV SpA, a joint venture of Avio and the Italian space agency ASI.