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:
- 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.
