Guiana Space Centre

The Guiana Space Centre (French: Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximately 500 kilometres (310 mi; 270 nmi) north of the equator at a latitude of 5°. In operation since 1968, it is a suitable location for a spaceport because of its near equatorial location and open sea to the east and north.

At CSG, space launches are conducted by several European private companies and government agencies working together. The CSG land itself is managed by CNES, the French national space agency. The launch infrastructure built on the CSG land is owned by the European Space Agency. The private company Arianespace operates the launches including planning missions, handling customer relationships and overseeing the team at CSG that integrates and prepares vehicles for launch. The rockets themselves are designed and produced by other companies, ArianeGroup for the Ariane 6 and Avio for the Vega.

In 1964, Guiana was selected to become the spaceport of France, replacing France's first launch site Centre interarmées d'essais d'engins spéciaux in Hammaguir (Algeria) after Algeria's independence, moving to and expanding in Guiana colonization. In 1975, France offered to share Kourou with the ESA, with ESA covering today two thirds of Guiana Space Centre's budget. Commercial launches are also bought by non-European companies. ESA pays two-thirds of the spaceport's annual budget and has also financed the upgrades made during the development of the Ariane launchers.

On 4 April 2017, the center was occupied by 30 labour unions and indigenous peoples leaders in the midst of the 2017 social unrest in French Guiana. The center resumed operation on 24 April 2017, after an emergency relief plan of up to 2.1 billion euros was authorized by the French government.

The location of the space centre was selected based on various factors. One of the primary benefits of this spaceport is its proximity to the equator, which makes it more efficient, requiring substantially less energy, to launch spacecraft into an near-equatorial, geostationary orbit compared to launching from spaceports at higher latitudes.

Additionally, the centre's location adjacent to the open sea to the east reduces the potential risk of rocket stages and debris from launch failures falling on or near human settlements, which enhances safety during spaceflight activities.

Furthermore, rockets typically launch towards the east to take advantage of Earth's rotation and the angular momentum it provides. The near-equatorial location of the Guiana Space Centre offers an advantage for launches to low-inclination or geostationary Earth orbits, as rockets can be launched into orbits with an inclination of as low as 6°. In contrast, a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with a latitude of 28.5°, can only be launched to an inclination of 28.5°, requiring a significant amount of propellant to change the inclination.

The location of the Guiana Space Centre provides benefits for launching spacecraft into low-inclination or geostationary Earth orbits. Rockets of similar size to those used at other spaceports to place satellites into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), such as the Proton and Ariane 5 rockets, can send similar payloads to a low Earth orbit (LEO). For example, the Proton rocket, launched from high latitudes in Russia, can only send 6,270 kg to GTO, while the Kourou-launched Ariane 5 can send more than 10,000 kg to GTO.