{"id":12488,"date":"2020-05-07T22:10:02","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T14:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/arianespace-to-resume-launch-preparations-in-french-guiana\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T22:10:02","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T14:10:02","slug":"arianespace-to-resume-launch-preparations-in-french-guiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/arianespace-to-resume-launch-preparations-in-french-guiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Arianespace to resume launch preparations in French Guiana"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Europe\u2019s primary launch site is the Guiana Space Center, located in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America. Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 L. Boyer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Targeting a pair of satellite launches in June and July, ground teams will resume work at the Guiana Space Center in South America next week after a nearly two-month pause in Arianespace\u2019s launch campaigns due to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Arianespace said engineers and technicians will start the \u201cgradual resumption\u201d of launch activities Monday, in line with measures introduced by the French government to allow for the loosening of a strict lockdown that halted much of the country\u2019s business operations.<\/p>\n

The initial launch preparation activities in French Guiana \u2014 an overseas department of France \u2014 will focus on readying an Italian-built Vega launcher for liftoff in mid-June on a rideshare mission carrying approximately 50 small satellites into orbit.<\/p>\n

The Vega launch was previously scheduled for March 23, but officials ordered a halt to launch preparations in mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic swept across Europe and threatened the population in French Guiana.<\/p>\n

The next flight of the Vega rocket will be the solid-fueled launcher\u2019s first mission since last July, when a malfunction on the rocket\u2019s second stage led to the vehicle\u2019s destruction and the loss of a military spy satellite owned by the United Arab Emirates. It will be the 16th flight overall by a Vega rocket since February 2012.<\/p>\n

A dual-payload mission using Europe\u2019s heavy-duty Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled for liftoff at the end of July carrying large geostationary communications satellites for Intelsat and the Japanese operator B-SAT, Arianespace said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these campaigns will be carried out in strict compliance with the health rules published by the Prefect of French Guiana, as well as the French CNES space agency and the Guiana Space Center,\u201d Arianespace said. \u201cThe objective is to preserve the health of launch site workers and those who are deployed to the space center, as well as the local population \u2014 all while ensuring the security and safety conditions required for preparation of the planned launches.\u201d<\/p>\n

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File photo of a Vega rocket on the launch pad. Credit: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stephane Israel, Arianespace\u2019s CEO, said in a video interview with Via Satellite magazine that the level of infection with the COVID-19 viral disease is \u201cvery, very, very low.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel said teams from France, Italy and other parts of Europe will travel back to French Guiana early next week. They will pick up where technicians left off in the Vega launch campaign in March, which was put on hold after most of the rocket was already assembled on its launch pad.<\/p>\n

Security forces and a minimum staff remained at the spaceport to maintain the readiness of the center\u2019s infrastructure and the safety of rocket and satellite hardware.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Guiana Space Center, we have reorganized when we are working,\u201d Israel told Via Satellite. \u201cWhen it\u2019s not possible to respect social distancing, then we have masks to protect ourselves and to protect our teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

ArianeGroup, Arianespace\u2019s parent company, has continued some work inside rocket factories in Europe. The company assembles Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 engines and tanks at sites in France and Germany, and the work flow at ArianeGroup is now operating at about 70 percent capacity, Israel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see how this period is going to last,\u201d he told Via Satellite. \u201cWe know that we are going to work for months in a very special way. We will have to respect social distancing, where we travel far less.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the near-term, launches from French Guiana will occur with only essential personnel present. Israel said Arianespace is looking at ways to modify the way it broadcasts its launches to include more remote participation from customers unable to travel to French Guiana and attend the launch in person.<\/p>\n

At the time of the pause in launch processing in March, two launches using Russian-made Soyuz rockets were scheduled to take off in April and May with the UAE military\u2019s Falcon Eye 2 Earth-imaging satellite and the French government\u2019s CSO 2 spy satellite.<\/p>\n

Those missions are now scheduled to launch later this year, with Russian teams due to resume Soyuz launch preps this summer, Arianespace said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s primary launch site is the Guiana Space Center, located in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America. Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 L. Boyer Targeting a pair of satellite launches in June and July, ground teams will resume work at the Guiana Space Center in South America […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1540,1634,498,1244,2182,291,2010,1608],"class_list":["post-12488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane-5","tag-arianegroup","tag-arianespace","tag-avio","tag-b-sat","tag-commercial-space","tag-coronavirus","tag-cubesats"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}