Progress on Pseudosatellites

Pseudosatellites are airborne platforms that can fill some mission traditionally dedicated to regular satellites, like communications and observation, with 24/7 persistence, at a reasonable cost. The representatives of three French companies gathered to give an overview of their progress.

Tour of French New Space 2023: FLORE, Hyp4U and state policy

Let us finish this series on 2023 French newspace, by touching upon the small satellites services the armed forces are procuring, namely the FLORE SIGINT satellite, the Hyp4U hyperspectral one, and the policy behind these choices.

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

Space Situational Awareness news from the Paris Airshow

With the new French space policy to be announced in a few months, and likely including a heavy Space Situational Awareness (SSA) emphasis, a few companies were presenting their solutions at the 2019 Paris Airshow: Sodern is working with cubesat builder Hemeria and electronics expert CS on Hirondelles, a constellation of cubesats to do satellite-to-satellite… Continue reading Space Situational Awareness news from the Paris Airshow