February 20, 2015

CoSpace Steering Committee focuses on satellites

Co-chaired by CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and Jean Loïc Galle, Chair of the GIFAS (French aerospace industries association) Space Committee and Chairman & CEO of Thales Alenia Space, the steering committee of the CoSpace government-industry space coordination committee met today, Thursday 19 February, at CNES Head Office for the 8th time since its inception. The meeting focused in particular on satellites.

In the wake of the ESA Ministerial Conference in Luxembourg on 2 December, where launchers took centre stage, CoSpace has been focusing its attention since the start of this year on satellites. At today’s meeting, the committee discussed the competitiveness of satellite contractors in the fast-evolving global arena (constellations, big data, etc.) and development of downstream applications (imagery, geolocation, oceanography, etc.). Special emphasis was put on the contribution of space assets to monitoring of climate change, which will be a key issue on the agenda at the COP 21 global climate summit in Paris in December. For example, a lot of work is currently being done on monitoring greenhouse gases (carbon and methane) from space.

The steering committee is the executive structure of CoSpace, founded in September 2013 by Geneviève Fioraso, Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research and co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research, the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Economy. CoSpace also comprises representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, as well as the presidents of CNES, GIFAS and French aerospace and defence research agency ONERA, CNES’s Science Programmes Committee (CPS), and space industry operators, contractors, equipment manufacturers and SMEs.



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Alain Delrieu Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
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Patrick Guérin, GIFAS Tel. +33 (0)1 44 43 17 52 patrick.guerin@gifas.fr
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