Aerial view of the Booster Integration Building

Aerial view of the Booster Integration Building (BIP), the facility for the integration of the Ariane-5 solid booster stage at Europes Spaceport, near Kourou, French Guiana. This 53-m-tall facility receives fully loaded forward booster segments from Italy while the larger central and aft segments are loaded at the nearby Guiana Propellant Plant (UPG). In the BIP, the segments are mated together and the booster's nozzle, and the non-propulsive elements of the booster (nose cone, skirts, avionics) are added. The completed boosters are then transferred to the booster storage building (BSE) where they are kept until the launch campaign begins.