Bring out new private players and, why not, the SpaceX of tomorrow, in the European space industry?
It is possible, according to Philippe Baptiste, appointed to the presidency of the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) on April 14.
For that, we need a new approach in terms of supporting good ideas.
“
There are a lot of start-ups in the space world, in France and in Europe,” he
believes, but after “
the outbreak, what they need is not so much subsidies. or aid (…), it is to have contracts to achieve an industrial, technological object. "
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Philippe Baptiste, the mathematician of space
A contract with Cnes would then allow them to promote it to an investor who would support future development.
Cnes, which manages
start-up
incubation programs, must now switch to “
more agile
”
mode
and adapt to the needs of start-ups.
"
You have to be able to sign a contract quickly knowing that you don't necessarily have a legal department of 90 people across the way, capable of answering all the questions we might ask them"
, summarizes Philippe Baptiste. Many start-ups testify that if the Cnes is there to support them, they have neither the time nor the human resources to enter into an evaluation process deemed too winding and too administered. The Cnes must therefore take more risks. Like the European Space Agency (ESA) which is also developing its relationship with start-ups. Last December, ESA did not hesitate to entrust the Swiss start-up ClearSpace with its first contract to deorbit a large debris in orbit: a stage of the Vega rocket.
