France’s Space Commander shares lessons learned from Ukraine and future plans

The defense commission of the French National Assembly is having a series of hearings about the lessons learned so far from the Ukraine war, and has finally published the exchange with the head of Space Command.

France debates its near-space policy

To start off 2023, the Chief of Staff of the French Air Force organized a colloquium on Very High Altitude Operations, meaning operations between conventional airplane altitudes, under 20km, and "orbital space" above 100km. It featured Air Force officials, but also the companies and research institutes involved in developing platforms able to fly at these… Continue reading France debates its near-space policy

ASTERX 22: France’s annual military space exercise

While Russia started invading Ukraine, French Space Command was holding its annual exercise, called ASTERX 22. The ministry of armed forces then gave a presentation to the press about the command and the exercise. Background on French military space policy The presentation started with an introduction of French military space. To readers of this site,… Continue reading ASTERX 22: France’s annual military space exercise

GEOINT at DRM, the French military intelligence agency

The center for artificial intelligence at the Paris Sorbonne university is organizing a weekly seminar on the state of GEOINT in France, with a lot of distinguished speakers from the French ministry of the armed forces and from the industry. To open the series, they had none other than general (Air) Jean-François Ferlet, the head of the military intelligence agency DRM (Direction du Renseignement Militaire)

France’s new space defense strategy

Following last year's announcement by the minister of the Armed Forces of changes in the French space defense strategy, the different options have been studied and the decisions taken by the President of the French Republic. The minister has disclosed some of the contents of this new policy in a speech on July 25, 2019.… Continue reading France’s new space defense strategy