Centre Spatial Guyanais / Kourou Space Centre

Kourou, in French Guiana, is the site of the Arianespace launch facilities. It was chosen in part because, at 5 deg North latitude, it is close to the equator which makes the site ideal for launching geostationary satellites. As well as requiring minmal changes in the orbital inclination the equatorial lanch site takes maximum benefit of the Earths rotational speed to enhance the performance of the launch vehicle. Unfortunately this latter fact is counter-productive for sun-synchronous satellites, such as ERS and Envisat, which are in retrograde polar orbits!

Following the first firing of a Diamant rocket by the French Space Agency, CNES, in 1970, Europe decided to use the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG), in Kourou for its Europa launchers.

In 1975, ESA took over the existing European facilities at the Guiana Space Centre to build ELA-1 (the "Ensemble de Lancement Ariane", or Ariane launch complex) for its Ariane-1 launcher, soon to be followed by Ariane 2/3. For Ariane-4, and to step up the launch-rate, ESA created ELA-2, which makes it possible to start assembling another launcher before the preceding one has even left its pad. The adoption of the Ariane-5 programme brought the need for a further launch complex - ELA-3, with a different design that will make it far more flexible and more simple to use, while providing better safety. The ELA-3 facilities, spread over 21 km² have been used for qualification tests on various elements of the Ariane-5 launcher from 1993 on, up to the first flight in 1996.

"Europe's Spaceport" covers 96 000 hectares, and has a workforce of 1300.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry