ELA-1

ELV (French: Ensemble de Lancement Vega, lit. 'Vega Launch Complex') is a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana supporting launches of the Vega and Vega C rockets. It was first built in November 1971 and was previously used to support launches of the Europa, Ariane 1 and Ariane 3 rockets.

Ensemble de Lancement Vega
Vega Launch Area

ELV launch pad in 2017
Launch site	Guiana Space Centre
Location	5°14′10″N 52°46′30″W
Time zone	UTC−03 (GFT)
Short name	ELV
Operator	Arianespace · ESA
Total launches	52:     1 Europa II     11 Ariane 1     5 Ariane 2     9 Ariane 3     22 Vega     4 Vega C
Launch history Status Active First launch 5 November 1971 Europa II (STV-4) Last launch 29 April 2025 Vega C (BIOMASS) Associated rockets Active: Vega C Retired: Europa II, Ariane 1, Ariane 2, Ariane 3, Vega

Launch Sites at the Guiana Space Centre

4km
2.5miles

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  Active pads

  Inactive tenanted pads

  Inactive untenanted pads

1

ELFS

2

ELM

3

ELV

4

ELA-2

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ELA-3

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ELA-4

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ELS

History

Europa (BEC)

ELA-1, at the time designated BEC (French: Base Équatoriale du CECLES, lit. 'CECLES Equatorial Base') was constructed as an equatorial launch site for the Europa-II rocket which was being built as part of the ELDO programme. The first launch occurred on 5 November 1971. This was the only flight of the Europa-II, which ended in failure due to a guidance problem. The launch site was mothballed, and later demolished.

Ariane (ELA)

When the Ariane 1 programme was started, to replace the failed ELDO programme, a new launch site was built on the site of the former BEC, re-designated as ELA (French: Ensemble de Ariane, lit. 'Ariane Launch Complex'). The first Ariane 1 launch occurred on 24 December 1979. ELA was also used by Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 rockets, which first flew on 31 May 1986 and 4 August 1984 respectively. ELA was redesignated ELA-1 when the Ariane 4 entered service in 1988, as this launched from a separate launch pad, designated ELA-2. The Ariane 1 was retired on 22 February 1986, the Ariane 2 on 2 April 1989, and the Ariane 3 on 12 July 1989. ELA was subsequently demolished.

Vega (ELV)

In November 2001, started the redevelopment of the pad to accommodate the Vega rocket and the ELA-1 was redesignated ELV.^[1] The reconstruction retained the Ariane 1 flame trench and added a new 50 m tall retractable vertical assembly building to cover the rocket during the preparation, four lighting protection masts and a new launch tower for the rocket. The launchpad is sometimes also designated as Site de Lancement Vega (SLV) and Zone de Lancement Vega (ZLV). Vega made its first launch from the complex on 13 February 2012.^[2]

Launch history

Launch graph

1

2

3

4

1971

1975

1980

1985

1990

2010

2015

2020

2025

•   Europa II
•   Ariane 1
•   Ariane 2
•   Ariane 3
•   Vega
•   Vega C

Launch chart

N°	Date	Flight	Launcher	Payload	Result	References
1	5 November 1971	F-11	Europa II	satellite mockup	Failure	[3]
2	24 December 1979	L-1	Ariane 1	CAT-1	Success [4]
3	23 May 1980	L-2		Firewheel Subsat-1,2,3,4 Amsat P3A CAT 2	Failure	[4]
4	19 June 1981	L-3		Meteosat 2 Apple CAT 3	Success	[4]
5	20 December 1981	L-4		MARECS 1 CAT 4	Success	[4]
6	9 September 1982	L-5		MARECS B Sirio 2	Failure	[4]
7	16 June 1983	L-6		ECS 1 Amsat P3B (Oscar 10)	Success	[4]
8	19 October 1983	L-7		Intelsat 507	Success	[4]
9	5 March 1984	L-8		Intelsat 508	Success	[4][5]
10	23 May 1984	V-9		Spacenet F1	Success	[4][5]
11	4 August 1984	V-10	Ariane 3	Eutelsat 2 Telecom 1A	Success	[5][6]
12	10 November 1984	V-11		Spacenet F2 MARECS 2	Success	[5][6]
13	8 February 1985	V-12		Arabsat-1A Brasilsat-A1	Success	[5][6]
14	8 May 1985	V-13		GStar 1 Télécom 1B	Success	[5][6]
15	2 July 1985	V-14	Ariane 1	Giotto	Success	[4][5]
16	12 September 1985	V-15	Ariane 3	Spacenet 3 ECS 3	Failure	[5][6][7]
17	22 February 1986	V-16	Ariane 1	SPOT 1 Viking	Success	[4][5][7]
Flight V-17 (Ariane 3) was the first flight to launch from ELA-2 on 28 March 1986 [6][8]
18	31 May 1986	V-18	Ariane 2	Intelsat VA F-14	Failure	[5][7][9]
19	16 September 1987	V-19	Ariane 3	Aussat A3 ECS 4	Success	[5][6][7]
Flight V-20 (Ariane 2) launched from ELA-2 on 20 November 1987 [7][8][9]
20	11 March 1988	V-21	Ariane 3	Spacenet 3R Telecom 1C	Success	[5][6][7]
Flight V-22 (Maiden flight Ariane 4) launched from ELA-2 on 15 June 1988 [5][7][8]
21	17 May 1988	V-23	Ariane 2	Intelsat VA F-13	Success	[5][7][9]
22	21 July 1988	V-24	Ariane 3	INSAT-1C ECS 5	Success	[5][6][7]
Flight V-25 (Ariane 3) launched from ELA-2 on 8 September 1988 [6][7][8]
23	28 October 1988	V-26	Ariane 2	TDF 1	Success	[5][7][9]
24	27 January 1989	V-28		Intelsat VA F-15	Success	[5][7][9]
25	2 April 1989	V-30		Tele-X	Success	[5][7][9]
26	11 July 1989	V-32	Ariane 3	Olympus-1	Success	[5][6][7]
Flights V27, V29 and V31 were launched from ELA-2. V27, V29 and V31 were all operated by Ariane 4[8]
From July 1989 until February 2012, no rockets were launched from ELA-1. As an alternative, ELA-2 and ELA-3 were used. In November 2001, construction works started to prepare the pad for the lightweight Vega rocket.
27	13 February 2012	VV-01	Vega	LARES Xatcobeo (cubesat) e-st@r (cubesat) ROBUSTA (cubesat) MaSat-1 (cubesat) Goliat (cubesat) PW-Sat (cubesat) UniCubeSat-GG (cubesat)	Success	[10]
28	7 May 2013	VV-02		PROBA-V VNREDSat-1A ESTCube-1	Success	[10]
29	30 April 2014	VV-03		KazEOSat 1	Success	[10]
30	11 February 2015	VV-04		IVX	Success	[10]
31	23 June 2015	VV-05		Sentinel-2A	Success	[10]
32	3 December 2015	VV-06		LISA Pathfinder	Success	[10]
33	16 September 2016	VV-07		PeruSat-1 4 Terra Bella satellites	Success	[10]
34	5 December 2016	VV-08		Göktürk-1A	Success	[10]
35	9 March 2017	VV-09		Sentinel-2B	Success	[10]
36	2 August 2017	VV-10		OPTSAT-3000 VENμS	Success
37	8 November 2017	VV-11		2 MN35-13 satellites	Success
38	22 August 2018	VV-12		ADM-Aeolus	Success
39	21 November 2018	VV-13		Mohammed VI-B	Success
40	22 March 2019	VV-14		PRISMA	Success
41	11 July 2019	VV-15		FalconEye 1	Failure
42	03 September 2020	VV-16		Athena ESAIL GHGSat-C1 NEMO-HD ÑuSat 6 UPM-Sat 2 ION CubeSat Carrier Flock-4v × 26 (cubesats) AMICal Sat (cubesat) DIDO-3 (cubesat) FSSCat /A and /B (cubesats) Lemur-2 × 8 (cubesats) OSM-1 Cicero (cubesat) NAPA-1 (cubesat) PICASSO (cubesat) SIMBA (cubesat) SpaceBEE × 12 (cubesats) TARS-1 (cubesat) TRISAT (cubesat) TTÜ-100 (cubesat) Tyvak 0171 (cubesat)	Success
43	17 November 2020	VV-17		SEOSat-Ingenio TARANIS	Failure
44	29 April 2021	VV-18		Pléiades Neo 3 NorSat-3 Bravo (cubesat) ELO Alpha (cubesat) Lemur-2 × 2 (cubesats)	Success
45	17 August 2021	VV-19		Pléiades Neo 4 BRO-4 (cubesat) LEDSAT (cubesat) RADCUBE (cubesat) SUNSTORM (cubesats)	Success
46	16 November 2021	VV-20		CERES × 3	Success
47	13 July 2022	VV-21	Vega-C	LARES 2 ALPHA (cubesat) AstroBio CubeSat (cubesat) CELESTA (cubesat) GreenCube (cubesat) MTCube-2 (cubesat) TRISAT-R (cubesat)	Success	[11]
48	21 December 2022	VV-22		Pléiades Neo 5 & 6	Failure	[12]
49	9 October 2023	VV-23	Vega	THEOS-2 TRITON ANSER × 3 (cubesats) CSC × 2 (cubesats) ESTCube-2 (cubesat) MACSAT (cubesat) N3SS (cubesat) PRETTY (cubesat) PVCC (cubesat)	Success	[13]

Situation on 10 October 2023

See also

• Spaceflight portal

• Ariane 1
• Ariane 2
• Ariane 3
• Ariane (rocket family)
• Europa
• Vega
• ELA-2
• Centre Spatial Guyanais