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Searching for details: The author of this page will appreciate comments, corrections and imagery related to the subject. Please contact Anatoly Zak. In the meantime: (Historical context for the events described in this section): 1962 March 18: The accords d'Evian (Evian agreement) was reached between the French government and the Provisory Government of the Algerian Republic, giving independence to Algeria. (In the wake of the agreement, French military installations, including rocket launching site in Hammaguir, were to be evacuated.) |
The Ariane-5 rocket on the ELA-3 launch pad in French Guiana. Copyright © 2008 Anatoly Zak Laws of orbital mechanics push rocket designers to seek prospective launch sites as close to the Equator as possible. The space vehicle launched due East anywhere on the Equator can use Earth rotation to its full advantage, maximizing the payload and minimizing the cost. Such unique requirement made a jungle-covered South American coast of French Guiana an ideal choice for future European space hub. An exotic ocean-side coastline, near the town of Kourou, located just five degrees north of the Equator, would provide a starting point for a safe flight corridor over the Atlantic Ocean and give the rocket extra 460 meters per second in velocity from the natural Earth rotation. (221) Ironically, before the coming of the spaceport, the region was primarily known in France for a notorious penal colony. Kourou at a Glance:
The origin The decision to build the launch site in Kourou was made by France in 1964 and the initial construction at a cost of 25 million Francs was completed in 1968. Kourou provided France with the alternative to the Hammaguir rocket test base in Algeria, evacuated by June 30, 1967, in the aftermath of the Algerian war for independence. Location The original rocket launching facilities in French Guiana were built by French Space Agency, CNES, along a stretch of coastal land some 60 kilometers wide from the town of Kourou to the town of Sinnamari. Without climate controlled facilities, launch campaigns could be conducted only during a five-month-long dry season, while frequent floods threatened launch pads, located just five meters above the sea level. The main launch corridor to reach near-Equatorial orbit stretched some 4,000 kilometers in Eastern direction. It was also possible to reach highly inclined polar orbit, along a corridor heading 3,000 kilometers in northern direction toward the Islands of Bermuda. Total azimuth of possible launches from Kourou reached 120 degrees. The original flight control network included ground stations on the Montagne de Peres mountain, as well as on the islands off the coast of French Guiana, in the city of Cayenne, some 60 kilometers southeast from Kourou, and in Fortaleze, Brazil. Two main stations on the islands were equipped with 12-meter parabolic antennas, others with smaller antennas. (222) Rocket stages can be transported to the site by sea (booster stages) and by air (upper stages and payloads). Launch history First sounding rocket launches commenced in April 1968, followed by the Diamant launch vehicle in 1970. On March 10, 1970, the Diamant-B rocket successfully delivered the DIAL satellite into orbit, the first spacecraft launched from Kourou. Until May 21, 1973, total five Diamant-B rockets were launched from Kourou, three of them successfully. It was followed by the Diamant BP4 rocket. From 1976, the European Space Agency, ESA, partially funded the construction and the maintenance of the site. Around the time, the annual budget of the spaceport reached around 300 million Francs, one third of which was funded by France and the rest by the European Space Agency. The very first attempt to launch the Europa-2 rocket from Kourou in November 1971 ended in failure, after which the program was shot down. The ELA-1 launch complex was later refurbished for the Ariane program, which was officially under development from July 1973. The first Ariane-1 rocket was launched from French Guiana on Dec. 24, 1979, eventually making Kourou the capital of the world's commercial space activities. The Ariane-2 and -3 rockets were introduced in 1984 and a long-lasting Ariane-4 version completed its maiden flight on June 15, 1988. (219) It remained in operation until the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. At the beginning of the 1990s, the spaceport in Kourou occupied 850 square kilometers of land and directly employed 1,100 members of the personnel. The town and surrounding area was also booming, attracting a considerable influx of immigrants. The spaceport even became a destination for the Concorde supersonic passenger jet, which carried government officials, engineers and journalists attending major launches. Soyuz in Kourou Early on, the French government made an official decision to make the site available to any country willing to deploy its space launcher systems there. At the time, few could predict that Russian rockets would become first "foreign guests" in Kourou. After several years of consideration, Europe committed to fund the construction of a launch pad for the Soyuz-2 family of rockets in Kourou. On November 7, 2003, Russian and French governments formally agreed to bring Soyuz to Kourou. With the signing of a formal agreement between Arianespace and Russian Space Agency on April 11, 2005, the countdown for the construction of the launch pad officially started on April 26, 2005. According to the contract, the Moscow-based KBOM design bureau had to be ready for the "all out" tests of the launch pad with the Soyuz-2 (Soyuz-ST) rocket within 35 months from the beginning of the construction. The tests were expected to last for two months, culminating with the actual launch of the first mission sometime in 2008, or 37 months after the beginning of the construction. At the time, the excavation for the pad was expected to start at the end of the monsoon season of 2005. As many as 50 Soyuz launches were expected from Kourou over a 15-year period. (220) On February 14, 2006, Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chief Executive Officer of Arianespace, and Anatoly Perminov, Director General of Roskosmos, signed the supply contract for the first four Soyuz launch vehicles to be launched from Kourou. The ceremony in Moscow was attended by the French and Russian prime ministers. At the time the first launch of the Soyuz from Kourou was expected in November 2008. The construction site of the Soyuz launch base in French Guiana was officially opened on February 26, 2007, by Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, Yannick d'Escatha, President of CNES, Jean-Yves Le Gall, Director General of Arianespace, and Anatoly Perminov, Head of Roscosmos. The "end of 2008" was still officially cited as date of the first launch, however by mid-2007, it slipped to "no later than March 2009." Technical description The launch complex for the Soyuz rockets in Kourou featured considerable differences from its original launch pads in Baikonur and Plesetsk. Since the potential commercial payloads only allowed vertical integration with the rocket, the launch complex designers have decided to install payload module onto the rocket after it is rolled out and erected into vertical position on the launch pad. To provide a climate controlled environment for the integration of the payload with the launch vehicle, a movable service tower was introduced. The design of the tower would enable its further extension in the future, including accommodations for the crew access into the manned spacecraft. In designing the complex, the developers also left the option for future addition of the liquid hydrogen fuel storage, which would enable launches of the rockets powered by cryogenic engines. Upgrades for manned missions The upgrade for the manned missions would be also possible, however it would require taking the launch pad out of service for a certain period of time. (218) During the meeting of the International Space Station partners on March 2, 2006, the head of the Euroepan Space Agency, ESA, denied the existence of any plans to launch manned missions on the Soyuz from Kourou, however added "never say never." APPENDIX Launch complexes in Kourou:
Soyuz-ST payload capabilities from Kourou:
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IMAGE ARCHIVE
Road leading to the sounding rocket site, the first launch facility in French Guiana. Click to enlarge. Copyright © 2008 Anatoly Zak
The Diamant rocket on the launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana. Credit: CNES
Scaled model of the launch complex for the Diamant rocket in Kourou, French Guiana. Click to enlarge: 400 by 300 pixels / 32K Copyright © 2005 Anatoly Zak
An oversize container used for transportation of space hardware is unloaded in the port of Cayenne, French Guiana.
An oversize container used for transportation of space hardware rides along the road connecting the Guiana Space Center and the port of Cayenne backdroped by communications towers supporting the space center. Click to enlarge. Copyright © 2008 Anatoly Zak
The Jupiter building, from which flight controllers monitor Ariane rockets during launches. Click to enlarge. Copyright © 2008 Anatoly Zak
Igor Barmin, head of KBOM, stands by the scaled mockup of the Soyuz launch complex in Kourou during its demonstration at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget in June 2005. Click to enlarge: 400 by 300 pixels / 36K Copyright © 2005 Anatoly Zak
General layout of the Soyuz launch complex in Kourou, as presented at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget in June 2005. Click to enlarge: 400 by 300 pixels / 44K Copyright © 2005 Anatoly Zak
The construction of the Soyuz launch pad in French Guiana, as it looked in March 2008. Click to enlarge. Copyright © 2008 Anatoly Zak
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