Soyuz-ST

The Soyuz-ST-A and ST-B were modified versions of the Soyuz-2 rocket designed to launch from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, developed as part of a European Space Agency programme to add a medium-lift launcher between the light Vega and the heavy Ariane 5. The project was a Russian and European collaboration that built the Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz launch complex and adapted the rocket to the tropical climate, with a mobile service tower for vertical payload integration, European payload adapters and a European safeguard kit for flight termination. They were four-stage rockets for low Earth orbit missions in which the Fregat upper stage was mandatory. The first Soyuz ST-B launch took place on 21 October 2011 and the first ST-A on 17 December 2011. Between 2011 and 2022, 27 rockets were launched from the Guiana Space Centre, 26 of them successfully, most of them the more powerful ST-B, until the Russian invasion of Ukraine ended the launches. The Progress Rocket Space Centre lists the Soyuz-ST among the rockets it built.