ESA Hands Over Soyuz Launch Site to Arianespace

In a ceremony that took place on March 31, officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) finally handed over the newly-built Soyuz launch pad to Arianespace, the company that manufactures the highly-successful Ariane 5 delivery system.

The Soyuz launch pad was constructed with assistance from the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos), and is meant to accommodate the launch of this class of satellites from the ESA Kourou Spaceport, in French Guiana, South America.

But the March 31 event was informal. The official handover of the launch pad took place on Saturday, May 7, on the premises around the new facility. Arianespace is now the official operator of the pad and the Soyuz delivery system fleet that will launch from this location.

The site is now opened for business, ESA says. A review conducted over the past couple of weeks has tested all systems on the pad, and even simulated a rocket launch event. Now, the way is paved for the first real Soyuz takeoff from French Guiana, which is scheduled to take place later this year.

The May 7 ceremony was attended by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, Arianespace chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall, CNES president Yannick d’Escatha and the head of RosCosmos, Vladimir Popovkin.

CNES is the French space agency, and it was the main contractor on the project. It surrendered the site to ESA in late March, after the facilities successfully completed an “acceptance review.” After conducting a series of simulations itself, ESA now handed over the pad to Arianespace.

“To mark this occasion and to celebrate the recent 50th anniversary of the first man in space, a commemorative plaque and a stone from the Baikonur launch pad from which Yuri Gagarin took off in 1961 was sealed on the site,” ESA announces in a press release.

“This stone symbolizes the continuity between the Russian launch site, which saw the start of the space age with Sputnik followed by the first human spaceflight, and the setting up of a Soyuz launch operation in French Guiana,” the release goes on to say.

One of the most interesting things about this new launch pad is the fact that it will allow ESA to launch manned spaceflights to the International Space Station (ISS) in the future. All that is needed for this to happen are a few upgrades to the launch pad, and of course the purchase of Soyuz space capsules.