CNES’s 300 managers and experts gathered in Toulouse on Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 September around the members of the agency’s Executive Committee. This seminar offered the opportunity to underline the assets that CNES can leverage to ready itself for the major challenges that lie ahead in France, Europe and the international arena.
This sixth such gathering of CNES managers, which takes place every 18 months, was the first at which all of the agency’s experts were also present. And this year the seminar took on a special importance, coming after a busy summer for CNES with Rosetta and Philae, the ATV Georges Lemaître, the Mars 2020 and SVOM programmes, and Galileo, plus the many challenges it faces in the near future.
The seminar aired the various aspects of CNES’s programmes, providing a status check on the situation regarding launchers looking ahead to the next ESA Council meeting at ministerial level in December in Luxembourg, and on orbital systems, focusing on telecommunications and Earth observation. Each presentation gave rise to stimulating and thought-provoking discussions.
Speaking at the seminar, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall said: “We can be extremely satisfied with the huge success of this seminar, which is a key event for our agency, since the strong teamwork that characterizes CNES is something we must continue to develop. The managers and experts gathered here over these two days are the bedrock on which the agency is built. We could accomplish nothing without them and our fruitful discussions will help us to move forward together and better apprehend the challenges, opportunities and risks that CNES faces. In a complex environment where timescales are being compressed and short-term demands sometimes lead us to lose sight of longer-term requirements, we must share a clear vision of what our mission is so that we can invent solutions to today’s problems while charting together the future of CNES and spacefaring Europe.”
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
