Kourou is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It is an administrative district in French Guiana and the main town there.
The Diamant rocket was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the United States or USSR. As such, it has been referred to as being a key predecessor for all subsequent European launcher projects. The head of the project, Charley Attali, received the Legion of Honour in 1965 for the Diamant.
Ariane 2 was a European expendable space launch vehicle, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) between 1986 and 1989 as part of Ariane family of rockets. The principal manufacturer for the Ariane 2 was Aérospatiale, while the lead agency for its development was the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French government's space agency.
The Guiana Space Centre, also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximately 500 kilometres 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.
Hermes was a proposed spaceplane designed by the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) in 1975, and later by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was superficially similar to the American Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar and the larger Space Shuttle.
CNES is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency comes under the supervision of the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation.
A mission control center is a facility that manages space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the ground segment of spacecraft operations. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the vehicle using ground stations. Personnel supporting the mission from an MCC can include representatives of the attitude control system, power, propulsion, thermal, attitude dynamics, orbital operations and other subsystem disciplines. The training for these missions usually falls under the responsibility of the flight controllers, typically including extensive rehearsals in the MCC.
Météo-France is the official French meteorological administration, also offering services to Andorra and Monaco. It has the powers of the state and can exercise them in relation to meteorology. Météo-France is in charge of observing, studying, and forecasting weather and monitoring snowpack. The organization also issues weather warnings for the Metropole and the overseas territories. Météo-France is also in charge of recording and predicting the climate.
The Pléiades constellation is composed of two very-high-resolution optical Earth-imaging satellites. Pléiades-1A and Pléiades-1B provide the coverage of Earth's surface with a repeat cycle of 26 days. Designed as a dual civil/military system, Pléiades will meet the space imagery requirements of European defence as well as civil and commercial needs.
The French space program includes both civil and military spaceflight activities. It is the third oldest national space program in the world, after the Soviet and American space programs, and the largest space program in Europe.
The European contribution to the International Space Station comes from 10 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) and amounts to an 8% share in the programme. It consists of a number of modules in the US Orbital Segment, ATV supply ships, launchers, software and €8 billion.
Vegetation and Environment monitoring on a New Micro-Satellite (VENμS) is a near polar Sun-synchronous orbit microsatellite. It is a joint project of the Israeli Space Agency and CNES. The project was signed upon in April 2005 and was launched on the 2nd of August 2017. The microsatellite, which was set to cost the ISA US$20 million and CNES €10 million, was designed and built by IAI and Rafael under ISA's supervision.
Athena-Fidus is a French-Italian telecommunication satellite providing high-throughput secure communications to both nation's armed forces and their emergency services. It was manufactured by Thales Alenia Space under the supervision of CNES, the Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). It complements the lower-throughput but more secure Syracuse 3 satellites. The satellite has a wet mass of 3080 kg and was placed on geostationary orbit in 2014. Its expected lifetime is 15 years.
Jacques Émile Blamont was a French astrophysicist, author and the founder scientific and technical director of National Centre for Space Studies, known to have contributed to the development of Veronique, the first rocket launched by France in 1957. He was an elected fellow of the French Academy of Technologies and a professor emeritus of the Pierre and Marie Curie University.
ArianeGroup is an aerospace company based in France. A joint venture between Airbus and Safran, the company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris. It consists of three core groups: aerospace, defence, and security. ArianeGroup has developed its next-generation two-stage Ariane 6 launch vehicle, which succeeded the Ariane 5 rocket, that had more than 110 launches. The new vehicle offers two variants that will be capable of carrying between 10,350 and 21,650 kilograms. The first launch of Ariane 6 occurred on July 9 2024.
ELA-4 is a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana supporting launches of the Ariane 6 program. ELA-4 is located along the Route de l'Espace in the Roche Christine site, between the ELA-3 and ELS launch facilities. The complex is composed of a launch pad with mobile gantry, an horizontal assembly building and a dedicated launch operations building.
Rangueil is a residential area south-east of Toulouse in Haute-Garonne, France, where grandes écoles and Universities are located as well as an important scientific complex. It has 2,295 inhabitants (2018).
Vega flight VV16, also called SSMS PoC Flight, was the 16th launch of the Vega rocket. The launch was also notable as it was the first Vega launch following the accident of the VV15 launch in July 2019 that caused the loss of FalconEye1 satellite.
Starlette and Stella are nearly identical French geodetic and geophysical satellites. Starlette was launched on 6 February 1975 and Stella on 26 September 1993. Starlette was the first passive laser satellite developed.
