Arianespace's Vega rocket suffered its first-ever failure about two minutes after liftoff from Kourou, losing the FalconEye 1 military reconnaissance satellite built for the UAE Armed Forces by Airbus and Thales Alenia Space. Investigators traced the loss to a thermo-structural failure in the Zefiro 23 second-stage motor.
- Outcome
- Failure
- Orbit
- PO
- Polar orbit
- Payload to orbit
- Did not reach orbit
- Flight
- 15th
- of 22 Vega flights
- Date and time
- 11 July 2019, 01:53 UTC
- Rocket
- Vega
- Builder
- Avio
- Launch site
- Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV), Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana
- Payload
- Government/Top Secret
- Launches in 2019
- 44th of 102