“ With the launch vehicles Ariane, Soyuz and Vega in 2020, we have demonstrated flexibility to our customers by pursuing highly innovative missions. We have never launched such a large number of satellites into orbit in one year – 166! We will continue this work in 2021 with the help of our three launch vehicles, and we will also add Vega-C to them, ”says the press service of Arianespace.

In total, the French corporation successfully completed ten launches last year. Soyuz launch vehicles were used five times to launch the spacecraft, three times – Ariane-5 and twice – Vega. Rocket launches with satellites on board were carried out from the sites of the Kuru cosmodrome in French Guiana, Baikonur and Vostochny.

December 2020 became a record year for Arianespace in terms of the number of Soyuz launch vehicle launches. In just a month, three Soyuz carrier rockets were successfully launched, two of them from the site of the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana. In addition, in December, the first in the history of the French corporation was the launch of a Soyuz rocket from the Russian Vostochny cosmodrome.