New agreements for next decade of launches at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana

The Guiana Space Centre, known in French as Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG), European Spaceport in French Guiana, is Europe’s gateway to space from where all ESA-developed launchers have been launched, offering guaranteed access to space with the Vega and Ariane rockets for over 45 years.

As Europe’s space economy grows with companies and initiatives such as the European Launcher Challenge, new launch service providers are going to be using the spaceport’s unique location and facilities to launch in all directions, from East to North .

To accommodate these changes and more, the framework for Europe’s spaceport has been updated to outline the evolved responsibilities for governance, funding, and operational use

Highlights include:

• provisions for new launch systems to be operated from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana;
• a new Launcher Operators Committee organised by CNES with ESA and all launch service providers as members;
• establishment of a strategic ESA–CNES committee for decision-making, recommendations, monitoring and coordination, such as on the future of the CSG;
• criteria for addressing launch schedule conflicts;
• provisions to emphasise the importance of CSG for Europe, to ease access to the spaceport for European companies and allow for collaboration with other spaceports in Europe;
• provisions to ensure the establishment of a launch pad for the European Launcher Challenge within the current Ensemble de Lancement Soyuz (ELS) launch complex, should the awardee(s) wish to launch from the CSG;
• provisions to grant  the authorisation for the use of the CSG Range by awardee(s) under the European Launcher Challenge;
• simplifying access under certain conditions for new launch service providers to use the CSG range.

ESA Council also adopted a resolution today in which ESA accepts the mandate entrusted to it under the 2025 amended Launchers Exploitation Declaration and in accordance with which ESA will negotiate the new arrangements for (i) the exploitation of Ariane 6 with Arianespace/ArianeGroup, and (ii) the exploitation of Vega with Avio.

Source : ESA

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