ESA VEGA: Central and eastern Europe make history with small satellites

University of Bucharest’s Goliat being integrated into the first P-POD.

Credits: ESA / A. Reyes

The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, Romania are now orbiting Earth after today’s successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher.

The latest addition to Europe’s versatile family of space launchers, Vega carried nine satellites, seven of them built by European universities.

This group of ESA-sponsored educational CubeSats included Goliat from Romania, PW-Sat from Poland and Masat-1 from Hungary.

The unique opportunity to launch the first satellites from these countries was made possible by a fruitful collaboration between the ESA launcher and education programmes.

“Since Vega’s first mission was a qualification flight, ESA decided to offer the chance to European Universities of a free ride into space for small scientific or educational payloads,” noted Antonio Fabrizi, ESA’s Director of Launchers.