During the 2023 Space Summit in Seville, European Space Agency member states agreed to allow Avio to market and manage the launch of Vega C independent of Arianespace.
The Vega family of rockets are developed and manufactured by Italian rocket builder Avio. However, a prerequisite for the company receiving ESA funding to develop the launch vehicle was that it would allow the marketing and operation of the rockets to be managed by Arianespace, which also markets and operates the Ariane family of launch vehicles for ArianeGroup.
When this arrangement was initially conceived, the French space agency CNES owned the majority share in Arianespace. In 2016, however, that all changed when the newly formed ArianeGroup purchased the CNES share of Arianespace to secure a 74% stake in the company. Although Avio currently does hold a 3.38% stake in Arianespace, its share is dwarfed by the combined 73.69% owned by ArianeGroup France and ArianeGroup Germany.
The Italian government began petitioning ESA to allow Avio to split from Arianespace as far back as November 2022. On 6 November in Seville, member states finally agreed to allow the split to occur.
There are currently 17 flights contracted through Arianespace to be launched aboard Vega vehicles. These flights will, for the time being, remain with Arianespace. However, Avio expects an agreement to be reached that would see the Italian launch provider assume the management of all 17 flights.
In addition to the present, Avio and Italy also secured the future of Vega. The company was allocated the grounds of the old Ariane 5 launch facility at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana to launch Vega E, the successor to Vega C. The company has also been assigned pre-existing infrastructure at the space centre for pre-integration activities. The new infrastructure will be utilized to increase the annual frequency of Vega C flights.
