CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall visits ESA’s largest establishment in the Netherlands

Today CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall visited the European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC, ESA’s largest establishment in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

He was welcomed by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and by other ESA Directors and senior managers for presentations and an extensive tour of the facilities.
ESA has sites in several European countries; ESA/ESTEC is the largest and is the technical heart of the Agency, the incubator of the European space effort, where most ESA projects are born and where they are guided through the various phases of development. Staffs from ESA’s 20 Member States and contractors at ESA/ESTEC are involved in science, exploration, telecommunications, human spaceflight, satellite navigation and Earth observation.

The establishment hosts one of the largest test centres for spacecraft in the world as well as highly specialized laboratories for system engineering, components and materials, working with a network of other facilities and labs throughout Europe.

During the visits, ESA and CNES could discuss of current and future cooperation.
ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said: “We are very pleased to welcome the President of CNES here to our technical heart. CNES is one of the largest contributor to ESA, and also ESA’s partner for many of its programmes, in Science, Telecommunications, Earth Observation and Human Spaceflight, as well as a source of management and technical expertise which reinforces the capacities of ESA”.

Jean-Yves Le Gall added: “It was a great pleasure for me to visit ESTEC, one of the world’s foremost space engineering centres. This visit gave us the opportunity to recall the longstanding and constructive ties between ESA and CNES and the programmes we have accomplished together, and to look ahead to the major challenges that await us, especially this year, which will be a decisive one for the future of spacefaring Europe.”

At the end of his visit, Mr Le Gall was able to meet and greet French senior staff working at ESA/ESTEC.

CNES press contacts

Alain Delrieu Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
Pascale Bresson Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39 pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37 julien.watelet@cnes.fr
www.cnes.fr/presse

CP005-2014 - Visite ESTEC_va.pdf (pdf - 192.16 KB)