Guiana Space Centre in the context of "Ariane 5"

The European Space Agency (ESA), pronounced 'ee-sah', is a 23-member international organisation devoted to space exploration. It has its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023. ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European integration. Its 2025 annual budget was €7.7 billion.

The ESA human spaceflight programme includes participation in the International Space Station (ISS) and collaboration with NASA on the Artemis programme, especially manufacturing of the Orion spacecraft's European Service Module (ESM). ESA launches and operates uncrewed missions to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and various comets and asteroids. Other activities include space telescopes, Earth observation satellites, asteroid impact avoidance, telecommunication and navigation satellites, designing launch vehicles (e.g. Ariane 6 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs), and maintaining Europe's Spaceport (the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana), as well as space safety and commercialisation.

Arianespace SA is a French company founded in March 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It operates the Ariane 6, a medium-to-heavy-lift rocket. Arianespace is a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran.

European space launches involve collaboration between private industry and government agencies. Arianespace is responsible for marketing Ariane 6 launch services, preparing missions, and managing customer relations. At the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana, the company oversees teams that integrate and prepare launch vehicles. The launch infrastructure at CSG is owned by the European Space Agency, while the site itself is managed by CNES, France's national space agency. The Ariane 6 rocket is designed and manufactured by ArianeGroup.

Kourou (/kuːˈruː/ koo-ROO; French pronunciation: [kuʁu]) is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It is an administrative district in French Guiana and the main town there.

CNES (French: Centre national d'études spatiales, lit. 'National Centre for Space Studies') is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

It operates from the Toulouse Space Centre and the Guiana Space Centre. The president of CNES is François Jacq. CNES is a member of Institute of Space, its Applications and Technologies. It is Europe's largest national organization of its type.

The Eastern Range (ER) is an American rocket range (Spaceport) that supports missile and rocket launches from the two major launch heads located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. The range has also supported Ariane launches from the Guiana Space Centre as well as launches from the Wallops Flight Facility and other lead ranges. The range also uses instrumentation operated by NASA at Wallops and KSC.

The range can support launches between 37° and 114° azimuth. The headquarters of the range is now the Space Launch Delta 45 at Patrick Space Force Base.

Ariane is a series of European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne. France first proposed the Ariane project and it was officially agreed upon at the end of 1973 after discussions between France, Germany and the UK. The project was Western Europe's second attempt at developing its own launcher following the unsuccessful Europa project. The Ariane project was code-named L3S (the French abbreviation for third-generation substitution launcher).

The European Space Agency (ESA) charged Aérospatiale (whose former assets now form Airbus) with the development of all Ariane launchers and of the testing facilities, while Arianespace handled production, operations and marketing after its creation in 1980. Arianespace launches Ariane rockets from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana. As a result of the merger in 2000 that founded Airbus, the new corporation's space branch and subsequently its subsidiary with Safran, ArianeGroup, took over the duties of the defunct Aérospatiale.

Vega (Italian: Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata, French: Vecteur européen de génération avancée, lit. 'Vector European Generation Advanced') was a European expendable small-lift launch vehicle developed by Avio and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Designed to carry payloads between 300 and 2,500 kilograms (660 and 5,510 lb) into low Earth and polar orbits, Vega served primarily scientific and Earth observation missions.

Development of Vega began in 1998, with its maiden flight launched from the Guiana Space Centre on 13 February 2012. Over the next decade, it became the eighth most launched small-lift launch vehicle history, though it struggled to compete in the commercial launch market. After initial success, two in-flight failures and rising competition from SpaceX's rideshare programs, which offered lower prices, relegated Vega to primarily serving European government agencies willing to pay more to support independent space access.