The VEGA Launch Vehicle Liquid Propulsion System (LPS) has successfully completed its qualification review process on February 23rd 2010. All the development and qualification tests originally planned at system and subsystem level have been performed fulfilling the assigned objectives and the success criteria.
The LPS is a bipropellant system integrated in the VEGA AVUM fourth stage. The propulsion is performed by a high thrust bipropellant engine (MEA), which is fed directly by the propellant tanks, which are arranged into four identical tanks: two vessel for storage of fuel (UDMH) and two tanks for the oxidizer (NTO), both in parallel configuration.
The VEGA Launcher is reaching an important final milestone of it development. On Tuesday March, the 16th it has been declared successful the documentation Key Point at ESA premise which is authorizing the launcher to start the first phase of it qualification review.
Vega launcher documentation will be now submitted to the analyse of panels of independent experts which will give their contribution to the qualification. This process will finish by June this year and should authorise the last activities before launch.

The VEGA Multifunction Unit (MFU) has successfully completed its qualification review process on December 12rd 2009. All the development and qualification tests originally planned at system and subsystem level have been performed fulfilling the assigned objectives and the success criteria. Currently the MFU Flight Model is under acceptance test and its delivery is planned for end of March 2010. The MFU is the unit that, taking the command order from the On Board Computer, activate all the avionic power functions in the Launcher.

The VEGA Launch Vehicle external harness and interstage 3/AVUM harness have successfully completed the qualification review process on March 5th 2010. All the development and qualification activities have been carried out by AVIO, fulfilling the assigned objectives and the success criteria. AVIO will also be responsible for the manufacturing of this harness and its integration onto the different Stages.

Today in Rome, Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, and Markus Bertschi, Launcher Programmes Department Head at the European Space Agency (ESA), signed a contract defining Arianespace's support services for the qualification campaign and combined testing of the Vega light launcher.
The signing ceremony was attended by Italian leaders of the Vega project, including Francesco Depasquale, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company ELV, prime contractor for the Vega launcher.
The contract with ESA defines Arianespace's legal responsibilities and operational services to be provided during the combined testing and the initial Vega integration and launch campaign. The combined tests, to be carried out at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana starting in April 2010, are based on a launch campaign rehearsal using a representative launcher model. In particular, these tests will be used to validate the ground/launcher interfaces, as well as the procedures for launcher operation and control. The qualification campaign will follow the combined tests.
The initial Vega launches after the qualification flight are part of "VERTA", a development support program set up by ESA. The framework contract for this program, providing for five Vega missions, was signed by Arianespace and ESA on December 22, 2009.
Vega will start operation towards the end of 2010, joining the Ariane 5 heavy launcher and the Soyuz medium launcher as part of Arianespace's family of European launchers based at the Guiana Space Center. Vega will primarily be used for scientific and Earth observation missions, and offers payload capacity of 1,500 kg into polar orbit at 700 km altitude.
Vega is a European Space Agency program, financed by Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden. ELV is jointly owned by Avio (70%) and the Italian space agency ASI (30%). and Ground System, which have to be completed before the integration campaign of the VEGA Launcher qualification flight.

Starting from October 2009, the 10th, ELV S.p.A. Company created an office inside the Guyane Space Center in Kourou with an ELV site representative.
With this event, it officially started the preparatory activities to the combined tests between Launch Vehicle and Ground System, which have to be completed before the integration campaign of the VEGA Launcher qualification flight.

A complete test of the VEGA Flight Program Software (FPS) with a flight representative hardware has been successfully executed. After several verifications within a simulated environment, the FPS has been run in the real VEGA on board computer and interfacing the real VEGA avionic equipment. The LARES mission has so reproduced in the laboratory allowing the correct verification of the Guide Navigation and Control algorithms and FPS real time performances from launcher lift-off until payload injection plus de-orbiting and passivation phases. The four stages Thrust Vector Control (TVC) are installed within Cold Test Benches which include also representative models of the motor nozzles. All the stages are connected as for the flight configuration reproducing in the laboratory the complete launcher avionics system. This first successful mission test represents a very important step forward in the VEGA qualification program. This enables the qualification activities of the VEGA FPS in all its versions and improvement which conclusion will authorize its utilization for the maiden flight.

The Interstage 2/3 qualification tests program has been completed succesfully at the end of May. Static loads and Rupture tests have been performed in line with the predictions: the structure passed the yield/ultimate tests with a local plasticization on frangible section of the separation flange, withouth any degradation of the efficency of the Load Carrying Doors. The rupture of the Interstage occurred at 166% of the dimensiong loads and the structure behaved linearly up to the rupture loads. The succsfull completion of tests campaign is a fundamental step in the LV qualfication process and it solves all the technical reserves on the adoption of load carrying doors on a launcher airframe (never used on Ariane airframes).

LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) is a low-cost all-Italian mission with a short development time that will enable achieving important scientific goals in gravitational physics, fundamental physics and Earth sciences fields. The completely passive satellite is a tungsten sphere that has retroreflectors that allow the satellite's motion to be followed via laser from the Earth. LARES will go into orbit in 2009 from the Kourou base with Vega's test launch and will be inserted into orbit at about 1,400 km at perigee with an inclination between 60° to 86° and reduced eccentricity. Data will be acquired through the "International Laser Ranging Service" (ILRS), a network of various laser ranging stations in the world, which offers services for free on the basis of precise international agreements and makes all data immediately available. Data analysis will be performed in a specially created centre.

Tuesday 13th of January the structural model of the VEGA liquid propelled Upper Stage called Delta UCMEC has been delivered to Noordwijk, Holland, to the ESTEC Center Test to be submitted to vibration test. The Delta UCMEC carry as test passenger part of the liquid propulsive subsystem produced by AVIO. Four flight model tanks of the propulsive subsystem are mounted on the test article and will be filled with liquid simulants in order to obtain the same dynamic behaviour of the corresponding flight model filled with the real propellants. In ESTEC the model has been instrumented with a complex measurement system dedicated observe the pressures on the liquid propulsion system, accelerations, forces, deformation and during the test. Monday 26th of January took place the Test Readness Review in ESTEC in order to authorize the loading activities of the simulants and the relative tests of vibration; the TRR has been closed with success and therefore the loading activities, accomplished by the AVIO operating team, started this week, while the vibration tests will start next week. The management of the activities is entrusted to the ELV team

In the afternoon of October 17, in Leiden ,NL, on the Dutch Space facility, the VEGA Launch Vehicle Interstage 1-2 shock test has been performed.
This test represents a milestone for the Launch Vehicle qualification process, and the collected data will be used to demonstrate the design margins of the electronic equipments during the first stage separation critical flight phase.
Several European companies (Dutch Space, SAFT, SABCA, Intespace, Kaiser Threde, TNO)have participate to the test preparation and performance coordinated by the ELV team.
The organization, performance and results obtained consent to declare the test as a complete success.
Many thanks to all the test participants.

A further step towards the qualification and first flight of the VEGA launcher has been accomplished successfully on Wednesday July, 23rd: after the completion of the acceptance testing, the qualification model of the fourth stage liquid propulsion system, UCFIRE-LPS, has been loaded into the A4 transport container and shipped to Germany where qualification firing campaign will be performed in the EADS - ASTRIUM test facility in Lampoldshausen, near Stuttgart. For the first time the engine MEA (produced by the Ukrainian company Yuzhnoye) will be fired with the feeding system designed and built by AVIO: MEA indeed has always been tested by the use of ground feeding system by Yuzhnoye. The UCFIRE-LPS test campaign is then a fundamental step in the VEGA launcher development as well as firing tests of the Zefiro and P80 SRMs. The test campaign is composed of 15 firing tests where all the feeding conditions foreseen by the MEA qualification box will be investigated to verify system robustness and performance. The test campaign will start in September 2009, the completion of the test campaign with decontamination and shipment back to AVIO Colleferro of the model is planned for the end of December 2009. Good Luck to everybody is involved in the project!

On July 10th 2008 the transfer operations of the inert launcher denominated VEGA ISV1 (Inert Static Vehicle 1) from the Avio plant of Colleferro (RM) to the Space Center of the French Guyana have been successfully completed.
The purpose of the model ISV1 is that to verify the operations of mechanical integration of the launcher in the launch base, also realizing the combined tests between the launcher and the ground plants.
The arrival of the ISV1 at Kourou represents an important milestone of the VEGA program; in fact, even if we have to wait several months for the first launch, this event can be considered the beginning of the preliminary test campaign of the launch preparation.