• 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 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.