Overview | Preparation area | Launch zone | Entry into service

The Spaceport

Soyuz launch site facts

• The launch site is located 12 kilometers northwest from the Ariane 5 launch complex
  
• The launch vehicle’s assembly building is 92 meters long, 41 meters wide, and 22 meters tall
  
• Soyuz’s launch site is configured after the Russian Baikonur and Plesetsk Cosmodromes but with a new mobile launch service tower
  
• Assembly of Soyuz launchers is performed horizontally inside the launcher integration building, with payload integration performed vertically on the launch pad
  

Soyuz launch site > Entry into service

Soyuz' service startup at the Spaceport in October 2011 introduced an updated version of this medium-lift workhorse vehicle in side-by-side operations with Arianespace's proven heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the lightweight Vega – which joined the company’s launcher family in 2012.

The upgraded Soyuz – with its modernized avionics, improved-performance third stage, and enlarged payload fairing – was validated in multiple successful launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.

Soyuz flights from the Spaceport are managed by Arianespace's seasoned mission team members – many of whom already have direct Soyuz experience through commercial launches performed from Baikonur Cosmodrome by the company's Starsem affiliate. In addition, Spaceport operations are supported by the same Russian companies that have long overseen both manned and unmanned Soyuz missions.

The maiden flight of Soyuz at the Spaceport was an on-target mission that orbited two Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) spacecraft on October 21, 2011.