Shooting of Soyuz rocket launch in French Guiana
From 27 March to 5 May I returned to French Guiana for a photo shooting at the European spaceport CSG. Not only Ariane rockets are launched from there but also Russian Soyuz rockets. I was given the permssion to take pictures of the VS22 mission, which send 4 O3B satellites into space. I assited the assembly, the roll out and the launch of course. This time we installed one of my Hasselblad cameras directly on the launch tower, something that has been never tried before. The camera was only 80 meters away from the rocket during the launch. It was not clear if the camera will survive the heat and the pressure waves. However it worked and the result was an incredible spactacular launch picture which will become soon a new artwork within my "outer space" series.
I also took pictures at the construction site of the new launchpad for the the Ariane6. This will be the next generation of Europe´s space launch vehicles. The maiden fligfht of Ariane6 is scheduled for 2020.
Many thanks to Arianespace for the fantastic suspport !!
www.arianespace.com