Tue 1 Dec 2009
Published in Flight Global on 11/30/09, author Rob Coppinger
For the past 40 years, Russia’s cosmodromes in Baikonur and Plestesk have been home to the Samara Space Center’s Soyuz launcher, but from next year, South America will play host to the world’s most frequently launched rocket.
In July 2010, the flight of a Soyuz 2-1a from French Guiana will be the first use of a Russian rocket outside European Russia or a former Soviet state. French Guiana was studied as a Soyuz launch site in the 1990s. Its equatorial location enables the rocket to place 3,000kg (6,600lb) into geostationary orbit, compared with 1,800kg from Baikonur.
Transported by ship from St Petersburg, the first two Samara Soyuz 2-1a rockets arrived in French Guiana on 23 November. By May 2010, the first of these will be moved to the assembly building for preparation.
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