Arianespace, a multinational company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider, has launched on Tuesday, 7th of November, a Moroccan Earth observation satellite to low-Earth orbit on a Vega rocket, reports Space Flight Now, an online space news portal. The launch took place on 8:42 p.m. at the Guiana Space Centre or, more commonly, Centre Spatial Guyanais, a French and European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana. The Mohammed IV satellite, according to the same source, is the first of two Earth observation satellites in a Moroccan constellation and is built to monitor environmental applications and survey borders. The satellite's payload was designed by Thales Alenia Space, a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. Airbus Defence and Space SAS, a division of Airbus responsible for defence and aerospace products and services, took care of the Astrobus platform and integration, services. The two companies abovementioned will be building the second Moroccan Earth-observation satellite, concludes the same portal.
