The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Artist view of a Soyuz/ST lifting off from the launch zone of the Soyuz Launch Complex (ELS), of the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), Europe's spaceport near Kourou, French Guiana.
Soyuz launchers will be processed horizontally and erected on the pad some 18 hours before liftoff.
Approved by ESA's council in February 2004, the ELS is under construction at the Malmanoury site, some 6 km West of the Ariane Launch Complexes (ELAs) and is planned to be operational for launches of Russian-built Soyuz launchers in 2006.
The Soyuz launcher, an offspring of the R-7 ballistic missile, is the most used and the most reliable launcher in the world, with some 1700 launches of satellites or manned flights since the first Sputnik was put into orbit in 1957 and since the first man, Yuri Gagarin, was sent into space in 1961.
Since 1996, the European-Russian company, Starsem, has been marketing the Soyuz launcher, which is routinely launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
From Kourou, Soyuz launchers will be able to launch up to 2.5 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), thus complementing the launcher family formed by Ariane 5, which provides heavy lift capacity of up to 10 tonnes to GTO, and Vega, for light launches to low Earth orbits.