CNES is a prime mover driving Europe’s space efforts and a key player in major international programmes.
Our people conceive space solutions at our four field centres:
- Orbital systems at the Toulouse Space Centre (CST)
- Launchers at Paris Daumesnil
- Operation of European launchers at the Guiana Space Centre (CSG)
- Space policy at Head Office in Paris Les Halles
Toulouse Space Centre: maturing complex technologies
The Toulouse Space Centre (CST) has all the expertise required to pursue research and development of space technologies, design and build complete orbital systems (satellites, instruments and balloons), position and keep them on station, exploit data, track space objects and ensure compliance with the French Space Operations Act (FSOA).
The CST’s strength lies in its know-how in complex technologies and the close synergies it has fostered with the broad space community, be it research laboratories and centres, industrial primes, SMEs and SMIs, universities or engineering schools.
To accomplish these missions, the CST calls on its expertise in:
- automation
- electronics
- information technologies (telematics, networks and systems software)
- mathematics/spaceflight dynamics
- mechanical/thermal design
- Earth observation/remote sensing
- optics/physics
- Earth/universe sciences
- telecommunications
- quality assurance
- management (finance, accounting, human resources, procurement, etc.)
Paris Daumesnil: securing independent access to space
The teams at our Directorate of Space Transportation (DTS) design and develop launchers and ground support facilities for Europe’s space programme, guaranteeing the operational reliability and safety of every mission launched from French Guiana.
To maintain our independent access to space, DTS is conceiving the systems of tomorrow and developing with the European Space Agency (ESA) the new generations of launchers to best serve the needs of future space applications and the evolving space launch market, in optimal production and operating conditions.
DTS teams have all the engineering expertise for designing and developing launchers and associated ground support equipment:
- mechanical engineering and propulsion
- structural sizing
- structural dynamics
- flight control
- electrical systems and software
- telecommunications and information systems
Guiana Space Centre: coordinating launch operations
Ideally located near the equator for all types of launch, the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) coordinates launch operations, from final satellite preparations to launch and orbital injection.
Europe’s spaceport is one of the most modern launch bases in the world, where CNES is tasked on France’s behalf with ensuring the safety of people and property.
The CSG covers all areas of launch operations:
- range and flight safety, environmental monitoring, security and protection
- quality assurance and RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability, safety)
- information technology (telematics, networks, software and systems)
- electronics (signal processing, radiofrequency systems, microelectronics)
- automation
- telecommunications (radiocommunications, navigation, tracking and antennas)
- spaceflight dynamics, trajectory tracking and geolocation
- propulsion and pyrotechnics
- physics and chemistry (optics, materials expertise, solid physics and flight physics)
- civil engineering
- management (finance, accounting, human resources, management control)
Paris Les Halles: executing space policy
Paris Les Halles is CNES’s Head Office, where we shape France’s space policy as directed by our overseeing ministries and execute it under five-year government/agency contracts.
This is also where we chart our main strategic directions and priority space programmes, working at both European level and with our international partners.
The teams at Head Office cover:
- space programmes and science
- strategy and quality
- international relations
- communication
- human resources
- procurement and legal affairs
- management, finance and accounting
