After a 12-day journey over the Atlantic, the huge ship carrying ESA’s Aeolus wind satellite arrived safely yesterday at the Port of Cayenne in French Guiana.

Aeolus arrival at Cayenne (ESA)

The team had a very early start to unload Aeolus and its support equipment. The containers were carefully positioned on a truck to be transported to Europe’s Spaceport near Kourou about 60 km away. 

Unloading the satellite container (ESA)

After arriving at the launch site, known locally as the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG), the satellite container was moved into the airlock, to stabilise after its long journey.

Aeolus convoy en route to Kourou (ESA)

We can now safely say that the Aeolus launch campaign has officially started and the whole team are looking forward to getting on with preparing it for liftoff, set for 21 August at 21:20 GMT (23:20 CEST) on a Vega rocket.

Read more about the Aeolus mission.