Recherche

Valérie Pécresse, French minister of higher education and research, convened her fellow European space ministers for an informal meeting on July 21 and 22 at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The aims of the meeting were to enhance Europe's role as a major player in space policy, to bolster the European Union's two flagship space programs, namely Galileo (satellite positioning system) and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), and to propose new initiatives.

It carries on the work of the 4th Space Council meeting, which approved the European Space Policy on May 22, 2007. The aim of this initiative is to foster a common European space policy, so that countries no longer have to team up for each new program (e.g., Ariane, weather or communications satellites, ATV, Columbus laboratory, etc.).

Thales Alenia Space participated in this meeting to provide an industry perspective on the challenges facing the space sector.

Reynald Seznec addressed the participants, reviewing some of the main challenges facing Thales Alenia Space, especially in telecommunications, GMES and MTG. One of the main points of his remarks on telecommunications was that, if we are able to maintain our world-class position despite the difficult economic context, thanks to major competitiveness efforts, it is essential that R&D budgets be maintained, or even increased.

Europe is a world leader in space-based meteorology, so it's obvious that we have to leverage the excellence developed through the very successful Meteosat program to launch a third-generation version. As for GMES, while we can be pleased with the launch of the first series of "Sentinels", we shouldn't neglect the Jason family, which paved the way for operational oceanography.