The physical collection of ELDO photographs came to the ECSR in Frascati as an indexed and sequentially numbered metal box of black and white and colour photographic negatives. A faded handwritten title on adhesive tape reads: NEGATIFS – Australie: EUROPA, CSG (for Centre Spatiale Guyannais) Kourou: ASTRIS, CORALIE. Another smaller red sticker is today illegible.
The box most probably originated from either Raymond Orye or George Van Reeth, both of whom had worked for ELDO in senior positions (for the Europa I and III programmes and as Acting Secretary General respectively) prior to joining ESA. The box was later given to ESA staff member Nathalie Tinjod, during her tenure as ESA Records Manager, who donated it to the ESA Archives, at some point around 2012.
The negatives are grouped according to subject with separators between them, listing these subjects in French. The indexing bears the hallmarks of an individually created system, with some separators handwritten and others typed and some colour coding – green tabs for photos related to ELDO’s equatorial launch base in Kourou (BEC/Kourou) and red for those documenting technical subjects such as the different stages of the Europa launchers and their testing. It is not easy to understand the logic of the numbering system, some of the separators use acronyms which are not clear (such as C/Ig, C.iG/CE and C/Tg) and we are unsure whether there are different levels of hierarchy in the index.
One particularly frustrating discovery is that while there are separators for Europa launches, no negatives are contained within them. An inserted note in the Europa II section explains that various numbered negatives had been requested by the (ELDO) photothèque, confirming to us that one existed, but sadly meaning that these negatives have been lost. (However, the ESA Archives does possess some photographic prints of ELDO launches, which we intend to open in the future.)
Additionally, we have no written register or descriptions for the negatives, all of which adds to the many uncertainties of this collection!
What is apparent, however, is that approximately half of them have Kourou as their subject, and include pictures of the various aspects of the launch base, from canteen to control room. The remainder are divided between photographs of stages or elements of the Europa launcher, and ELDO’s telemetry stations in Brazil.
The digitised collection consists of 12 series of photographs, numbering 160 images in total, and including a roughly proportional selection from all three of these sections.
To browse the collection of ELDO photographs, enter the SHIP database and search for ‘ELDO photos’. You can also find a clickable link to the collection in the list of topics on the SHIP homepage.
Once you have selected a series, SHIP’s image viewer allows you to select your preferred viewing mode by clicking the 'image viewer' icon on the right of the top header bar.