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- The Ariane 6 launch complex construction, filmed and photographed from 2018 to 2021
The Ariane 6 launch complex construction, filmed and photographed from 2018 to 2021
From 2018 to 2021, aerial photo and video campaigns on the ELA4 construction site: fourteen films published by the Guiana Space Centre, photos used by ESA, Espace & Exploration and Latitude 5.
Background
Launch complex no. 4, or ELA4, was built in Kourou for Ariane 6: 90 m mobile gantry, launch table, umbilical mast, water tower, launcher assembly building. CNES, which ESA entrusted with building this launch base, wanted to show its progress step by step.
What we did
From 2018 to 2021 we flew over the site regularly for series of aerial photos and videos, then edited one film per campaign. The Guiana Space Centre published fourteen of these films on its YouTube channel, from November 2018 to March 2021: they show the gantry, the umbilical mast and the buildings rising, then the launcher mock-up arriving for the first tests. ESA published our photos on its Ariane 6 blog: on 8 January 2019, five views taken on 17 December 2018, then on 15 March, ten views taken on 8 March, credited ESA / CNES / Sentinel. Others illustrated the six-page feature on ELA4 in Espace & Exploration (no. 51, May-June 2019), the front page of France-Guyane on 1 June 2019 and the “Ariane 6 se rapproche” feature in Latitude 5, the CNES magazine at the Guiana Space Centre (no. 126, January 2021).
Videos
Gallery
Other projects
Launch campaigns: fifteen launches covered in Kourou from 2017 to 2019
Aerial photography of the launch complexes during Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega campaigns, within the windows authorised by the base: fifteen launches from December 2017 to December 2019.
Flame trenches of the Ariane 6 launch complex: inspections and a digital twin at 1.5 mm per pixel
Since November 2023 we have photographed the inside of the two flame trenches of the ELA4, which carry the engine exhaust away at lift-off. In 2025 a photogrammetric survey turned them into a digital twin and eight orthophotos at about 1.5 mm per pixel.
Jet guide and deflector of the ELA4: inspected after the first four Ariane 6 launches
After the maiden flight of Ariane 6 in July 2024, then after the launches of March, August and November 2025, we photographed the jet guide of the ELA4, outside and inside over its full height, together with its deflector.
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97310 Kourou
French Guiana
Route des Trois-Îlets
97229 Les Trois-Îlets
Martinique
20030-041 Rio de Janeiro – RJ
Brazil