Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz

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Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz
CSG Soyuz 01.JPG
Launch site Guiana Space Centre
Short name ELS
Operator Arianespace
Launch pad(s) One
Launch history
Status Active
Launches 14
First launch 21 October 2011
Soyuz-STB/Fregat / Galileo-IOV-1
Last launch 25 April 2016
Soyuz-STA/Fregat / Sentinel-1B
Associated
rockets		 Soyuz-ST

The Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz (ELS) (in English; Soyuz Launch Complex), is a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou/Sinnamary, French Guiana.[1] It is used by Soyuz-ST rockets: modified versions of the Soyuz-2 optimised for launch from Kourou.

The first launch to use the complex occurred on 21 October 2011, when a Soyuz ST-B launched the first two Galileo In Orbit Validation spacecraft.[2]

The site's equatorial latitude allows a greater payload mass to be delivered into geosynchronous transfer orbit compared to existing Soyuz launch facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.[2]

ELS is fifteen kilometres north-west of the launch facilities used by Ariane rockets.

It consists of a single launch pad, with a horizontal assembly and processing facility, or MIK, located 700 metres away. As with the Soyuz launch complexes at Baikonur and Plesetsk, the pad is connected to the MIK by means of a wide gauge railway, along which the rocket is transported before erection at the pad.

Unlike other Soyuz launch complexes, the pad features a mobile service tower, where the payload is integrated when the rocket is in the vertical position; at Baikonur and Plesetsk the payload is horizontally integrated in the MIK before the rocket is moved to the pad.[3] The tower shrouds the rocket during integration, but is moved back to a safe distance (again on rails) prior to launch.

ELS also differs in having a fixed launch mount, rather than one which can be rotated,[4] meaning that the rocket may need to execute a roll manoeuvre during its ascent to orbit. Earlier rockets in the R-7 family were incapable of rolling, so their launch complexes were built to allow launch azimuth to be adjusted before launch.

In 2015 after the quantity of payload orders requiring fuelling at the launch complex S3B site had been identified as a possible bottleneck in flight operations FCube, a new clean room fuelling facility dedicated to the Fregat upper stage and potentially additional small satellite payloads was built which will cut fuelling times from five weeks to as little as one.[5]

Launch history

Flight Date Time (GMT) Configuration Result Payload Remarks
VS01 21 October 2011 10:30 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[6] Galileo IOV-1 Navigation satellites
VS02 17 December 2011 02:03 Soyuz-STA/Fregat Success[7] Pleiades 1A
SSOT
ELISA (4 satellites)		 Imaging Satellite
Earth observation satellite for Chile
Electronic Intelligence Satellites
VS03 12 October 2012 18:15 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[8] Galileo IOV-2 Navigation satellites
VS04 2 December 2012 02:02 Soyuz-STA/Fregat Success[9] Pleiades 1B Imaging Satellite
VS05 25 June 2013 19:27 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[10] O3b F1 Low Earth orbit communication satellites
VS06 19 December 2013 09:12 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[11] Gaia Lissajous orbit - Space observatory
VS07 3 April 2014 21:02 Soyuz-STA/Fregat Success[12] Sentinel-1A Sun-synchronous orbit - Earth observation
VS08 10 July 2014 18:55 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[13] O3b F2 Low Earth orbit communication satellites
VS09 22 August 2014 12:27 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Partial failure[14] Galileo FOC-1 Navigation satellites
VS10 18 December 2014 18:37 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[15] O3b F3 Low Earth orbit communication satellites
VS11 27 March 2015 21:46 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[16] Galileo FOC-2 Navigation satellites
VS12 11 September 2015 02:08 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[17] Galileo FOC-3 Navigation satellites
VS13 17 December 2015 11:51 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success[18] Galileo FOC-4 Navigation satellites
VS14 25 April 2016 21:02 Soyuz-STA/Fregat Success Sentinel-1B Sun-synchronous orbit - Earth observation
VS15 24 May 2016 08:48 Soyuz-STB/Fregat Success Galileo FOC-5 Navigation satellites

Gallery

  • Carneau de deflexion des jets Soyouz CSG par mon.nini.JPG

    Flame pit with a mobile gantry

  • Soyuz launch - a moment of support arms release. Lightning safety tower visible on a left.

  • Map showing the Soyuz Complex at the upper left, with the main spaceport to the lower right.

  • Ensemble de lancement soyouz guyane.png

    Map of the complex.

References

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