Prospective CNES 2014
 

Welcome to the scientific prospective Seminar 2014


The development of space science is an essential mission of CNES. Agency program and technical center, CNES has no research laboratories of its own but works in partnership with the major public research organizations.

The orientations of the French space science programs are determined by the scientific community itself through the annual calls for proposals, especially on the occasion of prospective planning scientific seminars that take place every four or five years. For example it was at the Saint -Malo seminar in 1993 that Corot and Jason were selected as the first missions to fly on a Proteus bus. Five years later in Arcachon came out the first missions to fly on a Myriad family satellite: Demeter, Picard and Microscope. The most recent seminar was held in Biarritz in March 2009.

In order to define with the scientific community the mid-term guidelines for the French space science programs, CNES will organize on March 18 to 20, 2014 in La Rochelle a new prospective planning seminar covering all areas of space science: study and exploration of the universe, Earth and environment sciences, life sciences in space and materials science in microgravity.

To prepare the La Rochelle seminar CNES issued in September 2012 a call for ideas. This call for ideas was completely open, without any priority as regards either scientific themes, or hardware or software technical solutions, so the proposals could address

- Research topics,

- Observations and / or measurements from space

- Space borne experiments,

- Observation and measurement techniques,

- Data processing tools,

- Integrated space missions.

Proposals received in response to this call for ideas were subsequently evaluated by the committees and the thematic working groups in charge of advising CNES: TOSCA [1] for Earth and environment sciences, and CERES [2] for the study and exploration of the universe, and their thematic working groups, as well as two thematic working groups dedicated to life sciences and material sciences. These ideas have also been discussed by technical experts from CNES’s PASO [3].

After the seminar, the CNES’s Science Program Committee, the body responsible for assisting the CNES Board of Trustees in the development and monitoring of the scientific program of the agency, will review the findings of the working groups and will make a set of recommendations to the CNES’s Executive Committee. These recommendations will serve as a "roadmap" to the institution for the development of its scientific program in the medium term.

The conclusions of the seminar La Rochelle will thus constitute a major input for the medium-term orientations of the space science research in France and for the programmatic decisions of CNES in science.




Richard BONNEVILLE
CENTRE NATIONAL D'ETUDES SPATIALES

Directeur adjoint,
Direction de la Prospective, de la Stratégie, des Programmes LA PROSPECTIVE, DE LA STRATEGIE, DES PROGRAMMES, DE LA VALORISATION ET DES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES

Deputy Director, 
Programme & Strategy Directorate

 

[1]  Terre, Océan, Surfaces Continentales, Atmosphère

[2]  Comité d’Evaluation sur la Recherche et l’Exploration Spatiales

[3]  Plateau d’Architecture des Systèmes Orbitaux