Vega C Rocket Launches Five Satellites, Including CO₂-Mapping Mission, from French Guiana

Lifting off precisely at 10:03 p.m. EDT (11:03 p.m. local time in Kourou; 0203 GMT on July 26) from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, the four-stage, 115-foot-tall (35-meter) Vega C rocket carried a total of five satellites for the mission designated VV27.

At the heart of the payload was MicroCarb, a French-led satellite mission aimed at mapping global carbon dioxide (CO₂) sources and sinks with exceptional precision. Developed by France’s space agency CNES, the 400-pound (180-kilogram) satellite is capable of detecting CO₂ concentrations to within one part per million. MicroCarb is set to operate in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 404 miles (650 kilometers) for at least five years.

The launch also included four additional spacecraft forming the CO3D (Constellation Optique en 3D) Earth-observation constellation. Built by Airbus for CNES, each of the 550-pound (250-kilogram) satellites will fly in a sun-synchronous orbit at 312 miles (502 kilometers) and is designed to operate for a minimum of six years.

Fitted with advanced optical instruments, the CO3D satellites will collect data in the red, green, blue, and near-infrared bands. This data will be processed on Earth to generate high-resolution 3D maps of land surfaces between latitudes -60° and +70°, enabling detailed topographic monitoring.

The satellite deployment occurred as planned: the CO3D constellation separated from the rocket approximately 57 minutes after launch, followed by the release of MicroCarb 44 minutes later.

Thursday’s launch marked the fifth flight of the Vega C rocket, and the third successful mission since a second-stage anomaly caused a failure in December 2022. Vega C has since rebounded, with successful launches including the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1C in December 2024 and Biomass forest-monitoring satellite in April 2025.

By Azhar