The fourth stage for Vega-C is hoisted to the top of the rocket on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport, 5 March 2026.
The fourth stage, AVUM+ (Attitude Vernier Upper Module), will stay with the Smile satellite until almost an hour after liftoff. It ensures attitude control and precise orbital positioning. AVUM+ holds 740 kg of propellant and the main engine provides an average thrust of 2.42 kN. It will fire twice times on this launch to reach the drop-off orbit for Smile and and a final third boost to deorbit the upper stage and minimise debris left in orbit.
The rocket is now complete and waiting for the final upper part that includes the Smile satellite to take to space on flight VV29.
Vega-C is a single-body rocket nearly 35 m tall with that weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad.
Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Smile will use four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun. In doing so, Smile will improve our understanding of solar storms, geomagnetic storms and the science of space weather.
ESA is responsible for providing Smile’s payload module (which carries three of the four science instruments), one of the spacecraft’s four science instruments (the soft X-ray imager, SXI), the launcher, and the Assembly Integration and Testing facilities and services. ESA contributes to a second science instrument (the ultraviolet imager, UVI) and the mission operations once Smile is in orbit.
CAS provides the other three science instruments and the spacecraft platform, and is responsible for operating the spacecraft in orbit.
[Image description: Two people watch as a crane lifts a white box to the top of the awaiting white cylindrical Vega-C rocket housed inside the white launch tower with a large ESA logo at the top. The tower is surrounded by four lightning deflectors that resemble electricity pylson.]