Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz (ELS, ) was a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. Inactive since 2022 due to the Russo-Ukraine War, the complex was first used in October 2011 in support of the Soyuz-ST rocket and the Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre programme. It was demolished on April 24, 2026 to make way for a launch pad for MaiaSpace's Maia rocket.

History The first launch to use the complex occurred on 21 October 2011, when a Soyuz ST-B launched the first two Galileo In Orbit Validation spacecraft.

The site's equatorial latitude allowed a greater payload mass to be delivered into geosynchronous transfer orbit compared to existing Soyuz launch facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

ELS was fifteen kilometres north-west of the launch facilities used by Ariane rockets.

It consisted of a single launch pad, with a horizontal assembly and processing facility, or MIK, located 700 metres away. As with the Soyuz launch complexes at Baikonur and Plesetsk, the pad was connected to the MIK by means of a wide gauge railway, along which the rocket would be transported before erection at the pad.

Unlike other Soyuz launch complexes, the pad featured a mobile service tower, where the payload is integrated when the rocket is in the vertical position; at Baikonur and Plesetsk the payload is horizontally integrated in the MIK before the rocket is moved to the pad. The tower shrouds the rocket during integration, but is moved back to a safe distance (again on rails) prior to launch.

ELS also differed in having a fixed launch mount, rather than one which can be rotated, meaning that the rocket may need to execute a roll manoeuvre during its ascent to orbit. Earlier rockets in the R-7 family were incapable of rolling, so their launch complexes were built to allow launch azimuth to be adjusted before launch.

In 2015 after the quantity of payload orders requiring fuelling at the launch complex S3B site had been identified as a possible bottleneck in flight operations, FCube, a new clean room fuelling facility dedicated to the Fregat upper stage and potentially additional small satellite payloads, was built which would cut fuelling times from five weeks to as little as one.

On 26 February 2022, Roscosmos announced that it was suspending operations at ELS as a reaction to international sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Stephane Israel, CEO of Arianespace, "there will no longer be Soyuz launches" from the Guiana Space Center.

On 24 April 2026, the old launchpad was demolished to make way for MaiaSpace's facilities on the same site.

Launch history

Launch graph

Launch chart No.DateTime (UTC)Launch vehicleConfigurationPayloadResultRemarks121 October 201110:30SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo IOV-1Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system. First Soyuz launch outside of Baikonur or Plesetsk, and first Galileo flight from Korou.217 December 201102:03SoyuzSoyuz-STA / FregatPleiades 1A, SSOT, and ELISA312 October 201218:15SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo IOV-2Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.42 December 201202:02SoyuzSoyuz-STA / FregatPleiades 1B525 June 201319:27SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatO3b F1619 December 201309:12SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGaiaPart of the Horizon 2000 Plus programme, a space telescope designed to take an all-sky astrometry survey of stars and exoplanets. Only Kourou Soyuz launch into heliocentric orbit.73 April 201421:02SoyuzSoyuz-STA / FregatSentinel-1AMaiden flight of the Copernicus Programme series of earth observation satellites.810 July 201418:55SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatO3b F2922 August 201412:27SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo FOC-1Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system. Issues with the Fregat upper stage led to satellites being placed in incorrect orbit.1018 December 201418:37SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatO3b F31127 March 201521:46SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo FOC-2Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.1211 September 201502:08SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo FOC-3Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.1317 December 201511:51SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo FOC-4Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.1425 April 201621:02SoyuzSoyuz-STA / FregatSentinel-1BPart of the Copernicus Programme series of earth observation satellites.1524 May 201608:48SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatGalileo FOC-5Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.1628 January 201701:03SoyuzSoyuz-STB / FregatHispasat 36W-11718 May 201711:55SoyuzSoyuz-STA / FregatSES 15189 March 201817:10SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MTO3b F4197 November 20183:47SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MMetOp-C2019 December 201816:37SoyuzSoyuz-STA / Fregat-MCSO-12127 February 201921:37SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MOneWeb F6224 April 201917:03SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MO3b F52318 December 201905:54SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MCHEOPS and COSMO-SkyMedCHEOPS part of the Cosmic Vision programme, a space telescope designed to determine the size of exoplanets.2402 December 202001:33SoyuzSoyuz-STA / Fregat-MFalconEye-22529 December 202016:42SoyuzSoyuz-STA / Fregat-MCSO-2265 December 202100:19SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MTGalileo FOC-9Part of the Galileo satellite navigation system.2710 February 202218:09SoyuzSoyuz-STB / Fregat-MTOneWeb F13Final Soyuz launch from Korou, with all non-ISS relations between ESA and Roscosmos getting cut due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Gallery

References