When launching rockets, there may be grades of failure - explosion and debris being total, payload damaged or in wrong orbit being partial - but anywhere along that scale is a financial and mission disaster. Success, on the other hand, is absolute - and absolutely, totally delightful. For sure, the champagne flowed late on the night of 6 March after the European Space Agency's (ESA) light launcher, Vega, lifted a European Earth observation satellite to orbit. The 58min flight from Europe's space centre at Kourou, French Guiana, was a perfect success, from its to-the-planned-second lift-off to delivery of the Airbus Defence & Space-built Sentinel-2B to its intended 786km (488 mile) altitude polar orbit.
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