Space Forum / Space Flight / June 2005

I wondered about this as well, when  you have to launch that way, what
happens?

Brian

French Guiana is further east than most ppl think.  I beleive its in
the same time zone as the Maritime Provinces. When those stages are
expended they are well over the ocean.  

Kourou, French Guyana is 53W, Cape Cod is more than 70W; there's no need
to worry particularly that stages will fall on Boston.  Assuming a
launch azimuth of zero degrees (i.e., right up the line of longitude),
the centre line of the range first encounters land at St. John's, on the
eastern tip of the island of Newfoundland.  After that it continues over
the sea until it reaches the north-western limb of Greenland.  All in
all, I can think of few Atlantic launching sites that would have a
longer range over sea at zero azimuth.  This site:

http://satobs.org/faq/Chapter-09.txt

says that Kourou launches can be as much as minus eleven degrees
azimuth.  Supposing it were a problem, launching a few degrees further
east, then correcting the path later ("dogleg" manoeuvre) would be an
option.

JRS:  In article <1117432904.066320.285480@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
, dated Sun, 29 May 2005 23:01:44, seen in news:sci.space.tech, Charles
Talleyrand <kitplane01@gmail.com> posted :

Try looking at an Atlas.  Kourou Town itself is at near enough 52.5 deg
W, and straight North from there touches, more or less, the outer corner
of Newfoundland, then, after a further distance, West Greenland.

The distance from Kourou to Newfoundland is not much less than that from
Canaveral to Europe/Africa; so either the Newfoundlanders don't have
anything to worry about, but we do.

Subject to adjustment for the position of the launch site with respect
to the town, the exact inclination of the desired orbit, the possibility
of a modest dog-leg, ...

AIUI, the first stage in each case drops much nearer to the launch site
than to anywhere ahead, and any subsequent stages are expected to go
much further and come down in fairly little bits, like STS ET.