Soyuz contract signed
On 19 July Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General and Yannick d'Escatha, the President of the French space agency CNES, signed the development contract for the Soyuz at CSG programme at ESA headquarters in Paris.
This signature is a major step for the construction of the ground infrastructure at Europe Spaceport in French Guiana and for the development of the Soyuz 2-1b launch vehicle.
Preparatory activities have in fact already started and this contract ensures that Arianespace should be able to begin commercial exploitation of Soyuz launchers from Europe’s Spaceport in the second half of 2008.
