Milestones in the history of the Station

Rain or shine, from Météo-France to NATO, with two stops at CSG on the way, Bruno has been a weatherman for almost 20 years.  His greatest pleasure is studying the skies above French Guiana.  When he gets a moment, he goes outside and wanders around the site to unwind, while keeping his eye on the clock.  Behind his desk, it is true that things have changed since the early days. As fast as Range Safety refined its procedures, the weather station developed new tools to provide the required data.  Then he gets up and walks down the station's main corridor, along to the edge of the well-worn parquet floor.  Michel Rameau, who has worked at the weather station since 1967, explained that this was the oldest building on the entire site, where the Director had his office in the days of Véronique (CNES's first sounding rocket). Past the forecasting room with its numerous screens and the glass-windowed observation tower, he goes down the other end of the corridor and stops outside the heavy door to the Adour 1 radar room.  This is the hardened shelter, known by insiders as the 'blockhouse'.  This room, built as an annex to the main building, has been in service since 1997.  The armoured door is a real collector's item, as it was recovered from the number 1 launch pad.  Also used as a withdrawal room, it is designed to be used for tracking the launcher by radar. 

The biggest transformation to the weather station has been the Romuald radar, installed on the Montagne des Pères to take over from the Rodin radar, after fifteen years of faithful service on the tower of the weather building. The result of a partnership between CSG and Météo-France, the Romuald project originated in 1998 and was qualified in 2001. This radar, which rotates very rapidly, is a significant and extremely reliable piece of equipment.  Rodin nevertheless is still present as a backup.  Another particularly important development to the service was the fitting of radiosondes with GPS over the last six years.  The station also went through 'CSG 2000', a programme aimed at preparing for Ariane 5, which enabled some of the equipment to be renewed.  In passing, there were also the Super-Loki sounding rockets, which were abandoned after the fourth flight of Ariane 5, after having been used to determine the air density and wind speed at the solid booster's separation altitude.  As for the balloons, hydrogen, which was judged to be too dangerous, was replaced by helium.  Furthermore, the SAFIR lightning detection system was replaced with the much more accurate THOR system in 2005.

For Vega, during the launch phase, there will be few changes to the equipment as the zone will still be close by.  The transfer of the launcher to the launch complex will, however, involve significant modifications.  Beginning at the UPG (solid propellant production facility) behind the station, the launcher will be transferred by road and not by rail; the weather station will therefore find itself within the danger zone.  The on-duty weather team will then have to operate from the safety of the blockhouse.  Consequently, a minimum of equipment will need to be duplicated in the blockhouse, the screens at the very least.  Lastly, the Russian team has already announced that it would like long-term forecasts for Soyuz, introducing new constraints relating to humidity (problems with ice accretion on the fuel tanks) and meteorological phenomena in general.  So the forecast seems to suggest a great deal of work in collaboration with our Russian partners.