Artists impression of Vega launch

Vega is presently scheduled to launch at 0900 UT on Thursday, Feb 9, with eight student built amateur radio satellites.

The launcher will first deploy the main payload,  the LARES the Laser relativity Spacecraft and will then make an additional firing of the final Attitude & Vernier Upper Module (AVUM) stage before deploying the secondary payloads. the planned timing for these deployments are as follows:

T0+ 4245.30secs first PPOD, with (in order of ejection) XatCobeo, e-st@r, and Goliat
T0+ 4255.30secs second PPOD, with (in order of ejection) Robusta, MaSat-1 and  PW-Sat
T0+ 4265.30secs third PPOD, with UniCubeSat only
These Cubesats will not deploy their antennas until >1800 seconds after they leave their PODS
T0+ 4275.30secs  AlmaSat-1 – it is not known how soon this spacecraft will start transmitting after deployment

Pre-launch TLEs have not yet been made available but all the teams will certainly appreciate reception reports on the day. All observers are being encouraged to join the CubeSat IRC chat channel to pass on their news and comments in realtime. Using the irc.freenode.net server please join the #cubesat channel. It is recommended that you change you nickname to “name_callsign”.

For frequencies of the eight student amateur radio satellites to be deployed by Vega see http://www.uk.amsat.org/4180

Vega Elliptical Orbit Video http://www.uk.amsat.org/4119