CNES in Toronto for the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC)

A top delegation of CNES scientists, engineers and executives led by the agency’s President Jean-Yves Le Gall is at the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) this week in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) from 29 September to 3 October. This gathering of the world space community provides the opportunity to showcase the innovations conceived by the agency’s various divisions and to foster many fruitful high-level ties, including the signature of several cooperation agreements.

As for previous editions, CNES is present at the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), the yearly gathering organized by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) that has become a must-attend event for the world space community, attracting 4,000 participants from space agencies, international organizations and the space industry.

This year CNES will be presenting its five areas of activity—Ariane, Sciences, Earth observation, Telecommunications and Defence—to attendees, focusing on French-Canadian cooperation and notably the recent successful balloon release campaign conducted jointly with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) from the Timmins base north of Ontario.

CNES’s stand was officially opened on Monday 29 September after the opening ceremony, in the presence of Canadian dignitaries and Jean-François Casabonne, Consul General of France in Toronto. Several bilateral meetings were also organized with heads of space agencies, with space cooperation agreements being signed at some of them.

Jean-Yves Le Gall met NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to review cooperation between CNES and NASA, particularly the good progress made on the Surface Water & Ocean Topography mission (SWOT), both agency heads underlining the excellent working relationship forged by French and U.S. teams.

At this meeting, an agreement also was signed on TARANIS, a future CNES mission to send a microsatellite to observe transient luminous events (TLEs) in Earth’s upper atmosphere for the first time ever. CNES and NASA will work together on a Langmuir probe, to be supplied jointly by the two agencies and the LATMOS atmospheres, environments and space observations laboratory, which will complement the instrument designed to detect low-frequency electric fields. The planned launch date for TARANIS is 2016-2017, from the Guiana Space Centre.

Jean-Yves Le Gall also met David Parker, Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), to review joint initiatives underway with CNES. The relationship between the two agencies has received new momentum since the signature last January at the Anglo-French summit of a bilateral framework cooperation arrangement focusing chiefly on the SWOT and IASI-NG Earth-observation missions. An implementation agreement was signed concerning the UK’s contribution to the development of the SWOT mission.

Lastly, a status check was conducted with Isaac Ben-Israel and Menachem Kidron, President and Director General of the Israel Space Agency (ISA), on the two agencies’ joint Venµs programme (Vegetation and Environment monitoring on a New Micro-Satellite), which is set to make a major contribution to environmental research and scheduled to launch in 2016.

At the end of his stay in Toronto, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “IAC’s success continues to grow year after year and it is today a leading event in the world space calendar. At the 65th edition of the congress, held in Toronto this year, participants were able to foster a great many fruitful high-level ties and CNES took the opportunity to further its relations with several partners and look at stepping up our cooperation with Canada.”

CNES press contacts
Pascale Bresson Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39 pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Alain Delrieu Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
www.cnes.fr/presse

CP118-2014 - IAC_va.pdf (pdf - 196.46 KB)