Lifting off from the Spaceport’s Vega Launch Complex at 6:20:09 p.m. local time in French Guiana – the planned precise moment of launch – Vega lofted its passenger during a flight lasting just under 55 minutes, with Aeolus placed into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The Aeolus spacecraft, named after the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology, took off on a rocket from Kourou in French Guiana 24 hours later than planned due to bad weather above the spaceport. “Within numerical weather prediction, we expect the Aeolus winds to be particularly useful for improving our analysis of the atmospheric state in the tropics, a region where we know the model wind errors are large.”

Aeolus is carrying just one large instrument, a Doppler wind lidar called Aladin. Designated Flight VV12, today’s mission was Vega’s 12th since entering service in 2012 (all of which have been successful), and it further demonstrated the capabilities of a light-lift vehicle that completes Arianespace’s launcher family – joining the company’s medium-lift Soyuz and heavyweight Ariane 5 in reliable side-by-side operations from the Spaceport in French Guiana. “Aladin fires a powerful ultraviolet laser pulse down through the atmosphere and collects backscattered light, using a large 1.5-meter diameter telescope, which is then analyzed on-board by highly sensitive receivers to determine the Doppler shift of the signal from layers at different heights in the atmosphere,” Airbus Defence and Space wrote on its website. “It would not be possible without the long-term partnership we have with ESA.”

Aeolus marked the milestone 50th mission – and the eighth dedicated to Earth observation – performed by Arianespace for ESA. In post-launch comments from the Spaceport, Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël congratulated this mission’s customer – the European Space Agency (ESA) – and underscored his company’s continuing contributions to space research and science at the service of such institutions.
The European Space Agency's ADM-Aeolus global wind mapping satellite is successfully launched via a Vega rocket from Guiana Space Centre.