France to resume suborbital launches at French Guiana
Now that France’s space agency CNES has taken the management of its French Guiana spaceport back from the European Space Agency’s Arianespace government company, it has been moving to make the spaceport more attractive to multiple future launch customers. Previously it announced that it is offering launchpads to multiple new rocket startups. Now it has announced that has signed a contract with the French startup Optus Aerospace to reopen its closed suborbital launchpad for the first time in decades.
Officially inaugurated in 1968, the Ensemble de Lancement Fusées-Sondes (ELFS) launch complex hosted the Guiana Space Centre’s first launch on 9 April 1968, with a Véronique sounding rocket that reached an altitude of 113 kilometres. Between 1968 and 1992, more than 350 sounding rockets were launched from the facility.
On 25 November, CNES announced that it had signed a contract with Opus Aerospace to use the ELFS facility for the launch of its Mésange rocket.
In other words, under the control of a government entity, Arianespace, which also controlled all European launches for decades, the variety of launches declined. As soon as control was lifted from this government monopoly however the possibilities expanded quickly.
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Now that France’s space agency CNES has taken the management of its French Guiana spaceport back from the European Space Agency’s Arianespace government company, it has been moving to make the spaceport more attractive to multiple future launch customers. Previously it announced that it is offering launchpads to multiple new rocket startups. Now it has announced that has signed a contract with the French startup Optus Aerospace to reopen its closed suborbital launchpad for the first time in decades.
Officially inaugurated in 1968, the Ensemble de Lancement Fusées-Sondes (ELFS) launch complex hosted the Guiana Space Centre’s first launch on 9 April 1968, with a Véronique sounding rocket that reached an altitude of 113 kilometres. Between 1968 and 1992, more than 350 sounding rockets were launched from the facility.
On 25 November, CNES announced that it had signed a contract with Opus Aerospace to use the ELFS facility for the launch of its Mésange rocket.
In other words, under the control of a government entity, Arianespace, which also controlled all European launches for decades, the variety of launches declined. As soon as control was lifted from this government monopoly however the possibilities expanded quickly.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“As soon as control was lifted from this government monopoly however the possibilities expanded quickly.”
This isn’t really clear, since control was actually shifted from one government entity to another.
Call Me Ishmail: What changed is that Arianespace was no longer a monopoly controlling all launches and owning all the rockets. Instead France’s space agency CNES regained control over the spaceport (that it always owned). At the same time Arianespace’s monopoly on rockets has vanished. CNES wants to encourage as many of the independent new European rocket startups to launch out of French Guiana, and rather than squelch competition it is encouraging it.
And if it doesn’t, it knows those new rocket startups will simply go elsewhere. Just take a look at Italy’s plans to resume launches from San Marco.
A near equatorial launch site is really only of use to orbital LVs anyway.
Jeff Wright,
A near-equatorial launch site is of more use to orbital LVs, but suborbital LVs are not disadvantaged in any way by launching near the Equator. And re-establishing suborbital launch activity from Kourou allows sounding rockets and other such vehicles to take advantage of infrastructure and tracking assets already in place for the benefit of orbital LVs.
For that matter, the addition of orbital launch facilities to a previously suborbital-only launch site also benefits from the same synergies. Examples would be Wallops Island (MARS) with, first, the erstwhile Orbital Sciences and, more recently, Rocket Lab, having built orbital launch facilities there. There are also one or two such examples-in-the-making in Europe.