Tag Archives: Arianespace

Next Galileo launch preparation – Soyuz Flight VS11

The Soyuz launcher for Arianespace’s upcoming mission with the two Galileo satellites is taking shape at the Kourou Spaceport for a 27-March liftoff from French Guiana.

During activity in the Spaceport’s Soyuz Launcher Integration Building, the medium-lift workhorse began to assume its iconic form. The assembly of the Soyuz ST-B’s first two stages, plus its four first stage boosters, took place last week. Assembly takes place on a horizontal basis, in the Russian manner. Read more…

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Guiana Space Centre – The site

The Guiana Space Centre or, more commonly, Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport as it fulfills the two major geographical requirements of such a site:

CSG site

  • it is near the equator, so that less energy is required to maneuver a spacecraft into an equatorial, geostationary orbit
  • it has open sea to the east, so that lower stages of rockets and debris from launch failures cannot fall on human habitations.

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