Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales

The Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) is France's national space agency, established on 19 December 1961 under President de Gaulle and supervised jointly by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry for Armed Forces, and the Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Space. ^[1] Headquartered in Paris, CNES also operates the Toulouse Space Centre and the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana. Reported annual budget was EUR 2.370 billion in 2023 ^[2] and EUR 3.029 billion in 2024 according to the official agency overview. ^[1] Staff totals more than 2,300.

CNES has led or co-developed a wide range of Earth observation missions, including the SPOT series (high-resolution optical, from 1986), the Pleiades 1A and 1B optical satellites, the Jason, TOPEX/Poseidon, and SWOT oceanography series tracking sea surface height, and the MERLIN methane lidar mission developed jointly with DLR. CNES was co-lead with NASA on the CALIPSO cloud and aerosol lidar mission. ^[3] The agency manages the Argos satellite-based tracking system and holds approximately 115 cooperation agreements with 44 countries.