Prime Minister’s state visit to Japan “Innovating together” - CNES and JAXA sign new cooperation agreement

Saturday 3 to Monday 5 October, Jean-Yves Le Gall, in his capacity as chair of the France-Japan business council of MEDEF International, the international arm of the French business confederation, headed a delegation of top company officials accompanying the Prime Minister to Japan. During this visit, the Prime Minister launched the French-Japanese year of innovation and an exhibition of the most innovative French technologies was organized at the Miraikan Museum, centred on a mock-up of the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where the Philae lander was steered to a touchdown by a CNES expert team. Other programmes on show included the Mascot rover to be carried by Japan’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft that will land on an asteroid in 2018.

The CNES President also met Naoki Okumura, the President of JAXA, one of CNES’s closest partners, to sign a new cooperation agreement. This accord follows the previous agreement between CNES and JAXA signed in 2010. Its aim is to promote and organize joint actions in the peaceful use of outer space, enable exchanges of personnel with a view to forging closer ties between the agencies and establish the terms and conditions of a framework conducive to cooperation. This cooperation is planned across a broad range of domains including space science, exploration, Earth sciences, space transport and innovation.