Kourou station, also known as ‘Kourou 93’, is located 27 km from the town of Kourou and 90 km from Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, in South America.

The station site is 19 km from the Centre Spatiale Guyanais (CSG), Europe’s Spaceport. It is used to communicate with Earth-orbiting spacecraft such as XMM-Newton for routine operations, and for the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) – or for backup – for other missions.

The station hosts a 15-m dish antenna that transmits and receives signals in S- and X-band wavelengths, plus facilities for tracking, telemetry, telecommand and radiometric measurements. There is also a 1.3-m dish mounted on the side of the 15-m dish as an X-band acquisition aid.

Kourou station also provides system validation testing for satellites during final checkout in the assembly building at CSG or just prior to launch when installed on their launcher at the CSG launch areas a few kilometres away.