# Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
*agency . companies*

France's national space agency, established December 19, 1961. Responsible for shaping and implementing France's space policy, including EO, telecommunications, navigation, and defence space programmes. Operates from Paris (HQ), Toulouse Space Centre, and Guiana Space Centre (Kourou). Budget €3,029 million (2024). More than 2,300 employees. Key EO missions: SPOT series, Pleiades high-resolution optical, Jason/TOPEX-Poseidon/SWOT oceanography, MERLIN methane lidar. Co-operates Copernicus programme contributions through ESA. CALIPSO mission co-lead with NASA.

## Specifications
- **merge suggestions**: [{"slug":"ceos","name":"Committee on Earth Observation Satellites","score":0.5,"matchedOn":"slug","matchedValue":"ceos"}]
- **country**: France
- **operator domains**: ["cnes.fr"]
- **entity type**: company
- **last verified date**: 2026-06-10
- **verified by**: operator
- **claim status**: unclaimed
- **attributes**: {"merge_suggestions":"[{\"slug\":\"ceos\",\"name\":\"Committee on Earth Observation Satellites\",\"score\":0.5,\"matchedOn\":\"slug\",\"matchedValue\":\"ceos\"}]","kind":"agency","country":"France","operator_domains":"[\"cnes.fr\"]","description":"France's national space agency, established December 19, 1961. Responsible for shaping and implementing France's space policy, including EO, telecommunications, navigation, and defence space programmes. Operates from Paris (HQ), Toulouse Space Centre, and Guiana Space Centre (Kourou). Budget €3,029 million (2024). More than 2,300 employees. Key EO missions: SPOT series, Pleiades high-resolution optical, Jason/TOPEX-Poseidon/SWOT oceanography, MERLIN methane lidar. Co-operates Copernicus programme contributions through ESA. CALIPSO mission co-lead with NASA."}

## Editorial
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. [^cnes-at-glance] 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 [^wiki-cnes] and EUR 3.029 billion in 2024 according to the official agency overview. [^cnes-at-glance] 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. [^esa-cnes-profile] The agency manages the Argos satellite-based tracking system and holds approximately 115 cooperation agreements with 44 countries.

## Sources
- [cnes-at-glance] | CNES at a glance | https://cnes.fr/en/at-glance | tier=operator-press | accessed=2026-06-10
- [wiki-cnes] | CNES - Wikipedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNES | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-10
- [esa-cnes-profile] | ESA: Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) | https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Centre_National_D_Etudes_Spatiales_CNES | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-10

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/companies/cnes
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