spacetoday.net: Kourou spaceport to reopen

Posted: Sun, May 3, 2020, 2:06 PM ET (1806 GMT)
The European spaceport in French Guiana will resume launches in June. The Guiana Space Centre suspended launch activities in mid-March as part of the French government response to the coronavirus pandemic, but Arianespace said Wednesday that launch preparations will resume once the government eases a nationwide lockdown May 11. The spaceport's first missions will be a mid-June Vega launch previously scheduled for March, followed by an Ariane 5 launch in late July. While two Soyuz launches for OneWeb originally scheduled for this year from the spaceport are unlikely to take place now because of the company's bankruptcy, the French space agency CNES, which operates the spaceport, expects to be able to carry out the rest of the launches projected for this year.