Where have ESA got their launch sites ? How many have they got?

Question

Where have ESA got their launch sites ? How many have they got?

Answer 1

ESA's main spaceport is the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, a site made available by France. It is close to the equator.  They also use the Sea Launch system that is based in Ecuador; both of which are in South America near the equator.

According to Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESA

"ESA's main spaceport is the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, a site made available by France. It is close to the equator, hence commercially important orbits are easier to access. ESA became the market leader in commercial space launches in the 1990s. In recent years, ESA has also established itself as a major player in space exploration.

ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, and the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany."

Answer 2

Additionally to the CSG, ESA also uses the services of the Andorya sounding rocket site in Norway and the Kiruna test range in Sweden.

Before Kourou was chosen, the precedessor to ESA, ELDO,  used also Woomera in Australia and the italian space agency operated from the San Marco ocean launch site before the coast of Kenya.

ESA does not operate Kourou directly - they are actually operated by Arianespace and only few buildings and operations are exclusive for ESA. They also launch their satellites from Baikonur, Plesetsk, Vandenberg and KSC, depending on which launch vehicle operator they contract and if they cooperate with NASA. Using Russian launchers is simpler for ESA - most Russian launch vehicle companies are partially owned by European companies and don't break the funding scheme.

Answer 3

Vandenburg has been the launchsite for quite some time now. Not sure of the number.

Oh, just kidding...Dan S is correct.