Space Missions

ANGELS (Argos Neo on a Generic Economical and Light Satellite) is the first nanosatellite designed and developed by French industry with support from CNES. It is set to carry Argos-Neo, an instrument 10 times smaller and consuming three times less power than the generation of Argos instruments currently in orbit.

The four small satellites in the CO3D constellation (Constellation Optique en 3D) are set to map the globe in three dimensions from low Earth orbit, serving the needs of the public and private sectors, acquiring imagery from different inclinations and track potential changes.

EyeSat is a 3U cubesat built as a pilot under the Nanolab-Academy project. The satellite comprises two parts: a mini-telescope designed to accomplish the science mission and a platform accommodating a set of housekeeping systems to operate the satellite on orbit. EyeSat was developed by more than 200 students from engineering schools and universities, most of them interns at CNES or partner organizations.

JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) is an ESA’s large-scale mission that will investigate the formation mechanisms of the Jupiter system and the necessary conditions for habitability. It will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and will explore three of its icy moons in depth: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

This constellation of 25 satellites will enable Kinéis, a company backed by private and public investors including the French government’s space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) an international space-based solutions provider, to improve its global IoT connectivity.

MERLIN (Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission) will go into Earth orbit to measure concentrations of atmospheric methane with unprecedented precision and thus better understand the sources of this greenhouse gas playing a key role in global warming. CNES and DLR jointly develop the MERLIN to measure methane concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere with unprecedented precision, to characterize natural and anthropogenic sources of the gas.

MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission is a project to explore the two moons of Mars to help improve technology for future planet and satellite exploration. MMX will be carrying a suite of eight scientific instruments, with the goal of mapping and characterizing the moons’ surface at high resolution in order to determine their origin and bring back samples to Earth.

N3SS (Nanosat 3U for Surveillance of the civilian Spectrum) is an in-orbit demonstrator developed to perform planetary surveillance of the civilian radiofrequency spectrum in the L and S bands and to analyze sources of jamming. Its objective is also to provide in-orbit validation of the very small, very low-mass satellite design developed using the “design to cost” approach.

OneWeb is a satellite constellation developed with the aim of providing global broadband internet services to individual consumers. It offers internet services around the world through its 648 satellites to provide internet service to anywhere on Earth from space.

PLATiNO 1 and 2 are Earth observation satellites that will be launched on a Sun-synchronous orbit. PLATiNO 1 will embark a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), operating in the X band, while PLATiNO 2 will carry an optical thermal instrument.

The SVOM mission (Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) is a Franco-Chinese mission dedicated to the study of the most distant explosions of stars, the gamma-ray bursts. The mission consists of 4 main instruments of which 2 are French (ECLAIRs and MXT) and 2 are Chinese (GRM and VT).

The SWOT mission (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) brings together two communities focused on a better understanding of the world’s oceans and its terrestrial surface waters. U.S. and French oceanographers and hydrologists and international partners have joined forces to develop this satellite mission to make the first global survey of Earth’s surface water, observe the fine details of the ocean’s surface topography, and measure how water bodies change over time.