MaiaSpace to Launch Maia Rocket from Former Soyuz Pad in French Guiana
End of an Era as Europe's Commercial Space Launch Capabilities Expand
Recent news indicates that MaiaSpace will utilize the former Soyuz launch pad at the ESA/CNES launch complex in Kourou, French Guiana. MaiaSpace is investing “several tens of millions of euros” to modify the Soyuz pad for launching their Maia rocket. These modifications will likely preclude any further Soyuz launches from the site.
The war in Ukraine ended any cooperation between Russia and Arianespace regarding Soyuz production and launch. The last Soyuz launch from French Guiana occurred in February 2022 with the orbiting of OneWeb satellites. Since this mission, the launch pad has been sitting idle and it is therefore not a surprise that CNES began looking for a new user of this site. With that being said, the agreement met between MaiaSpace and CNES marks the end of era and ushers in a new one: that of Europe growing its launch capability by commercial means.
At the Space Tech Expo Europe 2023, one of the major talking points was that Europe needs launch capability. Commercial companies had and have been answering the call, there are quite a few European rockets under development. Isar Aerospace Spectrum, Rocket Factory Augsburg ONE, MaiaSpace Maia and Orbex Prime. Launch sites within Europe are also being constructed.
The fact that Soyuz will likely never launch from Kourou again was probably inevitable as relations have significantly soured between Russia and the West. Despite this, there are plenty of European launchers coming out of development and will be launching in the near-term future. Space is hard, and it remains to be seen which of these rockets make it to market. The development of launch vehicles is not an easy task and most rockets have some teething issues. RFA ONE suffered a setback in testing, as an example.
MaiaSpace is aiming for its initial launch in 2025.
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