GMV… Role-Playing With Vega… (Launch)

[SatNews] The second successful launch of the Vega has occurred.

The Vega launch vehicle is the smallest one in the entire European fleet and is capable of placing in orbit a payload of up to 1.5 tons for scientific and Earth observation missions in polar and Low-Earth-Orbits (LEO). The launch, from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, was watched at that location by GMV personnel. The Vega’s main payload was the Proba-V satellite, together with two smaller satellites: VNEREDSat-1A and ESTCube-1. This VEGA launch now forms part of the Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment (VERTA) program of the European Space Agency (ESA) and represents the debut of the launcher’s new Flight Program Software Alternative (FPSA).

GMV has been playing a very important role in various areas of Vega’s FPSA over the last three years, especially in the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) design and validation, with responsibility for developing the guidance and navigation algorithms as well as the Roll and Altitude Control System (RACS).

GMV personnel have carried out various tasks within their respective range of expertise, such as requisite analysis, architecture design, detailed algorithm design and preliminary validation of software prototypes within VEGA’s flight simulator. GMV has also been responsible for FPSA’s Software Quality Assurance (SW-QA) while providing support for Reliability, Availability Maintainability and Safety (RAMS) activities as part of the software development team.