30 Apr 2012

A meeting of the Space Commission (Commission Espace) headed by Reynald Seznec, CEO of Thales Alenia Space, was held on April 27, 2012 at the headquarters of the Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (GIFAS) in Paris. On the invitation of GIFAS, the President of ASI Enrico Saggese, gave a short lecture during the meeting in the presence of senior executives of French aerospace companies and research centers.

The GIFAS "Commission Espace" event was the first in a series of conferences to which will be invited in the coming weeks the CNES President Yannick d'Eschata and the DLR President Jan Woerner.

GIFAS plans to open an exchange of information between the major European space agencies and the French sector industries in preparation for the next ESA Ministerial Meeting in November 2012, to be held in Caserta, Italy, which prompted GIFAS to invite the ASI President for the inauguration of this brief series of meetings.

This was the first time a President of the ASI has been invited to participate in the work of this prestigious association, which has 23 member companies in France, representing a work force of more than 12,400 employees and that among others, organizes the Salon International de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (SIAE) in Paris-Le Bourget every two years.

The President Saggese presented the broad outlines of our country’s strategy in view of the Ministerial meeting, dwelling, in an open and stimulating debate with the participants, on topics such as launchers, the ISS and the future European missions with international cooperation that will be key topics of the next Ministerial meeting. There was also an opportunity for a fruitful exchange of ideas on the state of Franco-Italian cooperation in the space sector that has recently seen major joint successes such as the launch of the first VEGA last February.

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