This series of images shows Flight VV07’s upper composite while being transported to the SLV launch pad (photo at left), followed by its hoisting up the mobile gantry and installation atop Vega (center and right).

Arianespace’s seventh light-lift Vega launcher to be operated from the Spaceport in French Guiana is now fully assembled, having been “topped off” with its multi-satellite Earth observation payload.

Designated Flight VV07 in Arianespace’s launcher family numbering system, the September 15 mission will involve a trajectory to elliptical low-Earth orbit, where Vega will deploy a cluster of satellites for U.S.-based Terra Bella and the Peruvian PerúSAT-1 spacecraft.

This is to mark Arianespace’s seventh launch of 2016, building on a busy schedule that already has seen the company’s heavy-lift Ariane 5 utilized four times, along with two missions performed by medium-lift Soyuz launchers.

Integration of Vega’s “upper composite” in the gantry

Flight VV07’s final payload integration activity began with the “upper composite’s” transfer from the Spaceport’s S3B payload processing facility to the SLV launch pad. The upper composite is composed of the Terra Bella satellites along with PerúSAT-1 in a dispenser system for the multi-passenger arrangement, all of which are encapsulated in Vega’s protective payload fairing.

Once positioned on the launch pad, the upper composite was then hoisted up Vega’s mobile gantry, where it was installed atop the four-stage launcher.

Vega entered service in 2012, and the vehicle is provided to Arianespace by Italy’s ELV S.P.A., which is the launcher industrial prime contractor.