Europe's spaceport in the Amazon — Ariane rockets launch over jungle and sea
Kourou is a small French Guianese coastal town that hosts the Guiana Space Centre — Europe's primary launch facility, operated by ESA and CNES. The location near the equator (5°N) provides a significant fuel advantage: rockets launched eastward get a boost from Earth's rotation. The Ariane 5 rocket, one of the world's most reliable heavy-lift launch vehicles, has lifted dozens of scientific satellites, planetary probes, and commercial payloads from here. The town itself is surrounded by the Amazon rainforest; the launch complex is carved out of jungle 15km away. Launch viewing is permitted fr…
France established the Guiana Space Centre in 1968, choosing French Guiana over metropolitan France for its equatorial location, political stability as an overseas department, and vast uninhabited buffer zone. The Ariane program began in 1979 and became commercially dominant in the 1990s as the reliable alternative to American and Soviet launchers. ESA, NASA, and the Japanese space agency JAXA have all launched scientific missions from Kourou. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on an Ariane 5 from Kourou on 25 December 2021 — the most expensive scientific instrument ever built, trave…