Short Diary of the trip to
Guiana Space Centre
in February-March 2004

European Space Agency and International Space University arranged together 5th educational visit to Guiana Space Centre in February - March in 2005. On this trip there were students that had won the trip in a Aurora student contest and students from International Space University. All together 40 young people from different countries in Europe and some from other countries too. The trip was short, but very intensive.

French Guiana

The largest of EU areas outside Europe lies in South America next to Brazil and Surinam. It's 200 000 inhabitants consist of four different etnical groups. Besides the original Indians and the European settlers, there is a great proportion of blacks descending from the slaves. Asian population that has moved from other French colonies also forms another group. Besides the official inhabitants, there is also estimated to be about 50 000 illegal immigrants from Brazil, Surinam and Haiti. The GNP per capita is about half of the motherland France but still many times the amount in the neighbour countries.

In practice only the coastal area of French Guiana has got infrastructure and population. Cayenne and Kourou city centers look more like the Western countries whereas there are large urban areas without good conditions. Most of the country is filled with almost untouched rain forests. During our visit we had one day to spend in the jungle. We travelled up the Kourou river and spent the day on a camp site with guides.

The most popular tourist attractions are the Devil's islands, located some 13 km from the coast. These tropical paradice islands with their Cocos nuts and rocky shores are a must to visit during stay in Guiana.

The Launch of Rosetta

The Ariane flight 158 had already been postponed twice, on the first time due to too windy weather and on the second time because of technical reason. We were not yet in Guiana on these occasions, but on the third launch attempt we were present, in the middle of tropical night on March, 2nd. On the parking place of the Space Centre there were more than 10 buses full of space enhusiastic tourists. After they had checked our identities we were allowed to continue to a viewing area called Agami, located 7.5 km from the launch site.

The countdown was shown on a big screen and there were luckily big tents against the weather. Just half an hour before the launch there was a very heavy rain shower. During that it felt almost impossible, that the launch would take place on that night. The window was a single time point once every night during a few weeks. The launch was to take place in 4.17 local time.

The countdown was continued in spite of the rain and gradually the atmosphere began to stir up. The weather became somewhat better, but it was still a little windy. We were gathered on the side of our area to look at the lanch pad lights in the distance. On our left side the countdown was continued on the screen in French (there should have been English translation, but the radio headphones did not work). To our side the last numbers of the countdown echoed in French, but hardly anyone was looking at the screen. Then, suddenly the night sky began to brighten up and the exhaustion gas clouds started to rise. When the rocket had risen so that the flames themselves became visible, many people were sighing noisily. Ariane 5 was incredibly bright in the night. Soon all the rain forest next to us was lighted up, just like a morning had taken place. The clouds were quite low. At about the same time as the rocket rose into the clouds, the sound arrived to our viewing place. The roaring was something that I will never forget. It rose to thundering and was echoing from the forest. I took some photos with my film camera as the rocket was rising. The brightness of the rocket really astounded me as I lowered the camera. In the beginning the flames had looked somewhat orange in color, but later they were bright white. As the rocket took to the clouds, they seemed to boil. There were some sightings of the rocket even from behind the clouds, but not so much. The cloud pillar rising from the launch pad looked at this time like atomic bomb.

Because the poisonous chlorine gas, the ESA people began to empty the area very soon after the rocket had disappeared. The talking only began at this point, the observations and digital photos were compared. It was only half past four so we got back to the hotel for to sleep a few hours.

Kourou Space Centre

On the two remaining days of our visit we were allowed to visit the Space Centre. The most interesting places that we got to visit was the solid motor assembly building. For the next launch there was already one rocket ready. The solid motor rocket itself was seven stories high. Some 230 tons of solid rocket fuel was a little bit nervous to be close to. We were laughing at the foam estinguishers on the walls... The engineers told us that the greatest danger was static electricity and because of them there were grounding cables on every part. We were allowed even to take photos, but without flash.

Other places to visit were the new satellite handling building with clean rooms and the solid motor company's office. We also got to interview the leader of the launch during our last day. We were told that there are never any simulated problems in preparing for the launches, the real things have enough of those situations already...

All together the trip was beautiful experience, even that it cost quite a lot. Witnessing the launch was great, eventhough our probability to see it was quite low in the beginning. It would have been nice to stay longer, but on a trip arranged by oneself it would never have been possible to see the Space Centre on the extent that we did.

Mikko Suominen