Italian rocket manufacturer Avio has seen its third Vega C launch of 2026 slip toward Christmas due to late customer satellite deliveries, European Spaceflight reported.
Speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on November 11, Avio CEO Giulio Ranzo explained the scheduling shift. “The satellites from the customers are a little bit late, so we are waiting for the last few of them to arrive,” Ranzo said. “It’s an interesting mission, six different satellites. They’re coming in a little bit late, so we are coming very close to Christmas Day.”
The mission will carry six satellites built for Italy’s IRIDE Earth observation constellation. Photographs published by the French space agency CNES showed a shipment of these Thales Alenia Space-built satellites arriving by air in French Guiana on November 9, 2026.
Workers transported the spacecraft from Félix Éboué Airport to the Guiana Space Centre, where they arrived at the facility’s S3B payload preparation building the following day.
This timeline marks a two to three-week slip from previous projections. During the company’s half-year earnings call on September 10, Ranzo said that the mission was scheduled for the very beginning of December.
Payload delays have repeatedly impacted Avio’s launch calendar throughout the year. During that same September earnings call, Ranzo said that the company could have conducted more than three Vega C flights in 2026, but “one satellite was somewhat late.”
Avio has successfully completed two Vega C launches so far in 2026. The most recent flight took place on September 15, successfully deploying the European Space Agency’s FLEX satellite and the European Commission’s Sentinel-3C Earth observation satellite.
Avio continues working to increase its annual launch cadence. Ranzo indicated during the November earnings call that the company aims to progress to four and eventually five launches per year, provided customers meet spacecraft delivery schedules.
During a May earnings call, Ranzo suggested that Avio could conduct as many as five Vega C launches in 2027, nearing the medium-term target of six flights annually. Speaking during the November earnings call, however, he tempered those expectations by outlining a more gradual increase, indicating that the company could now target four flights in 2027 “if the customers maintain their deadlines.”
