PM Modi visits National Centre for Space Studies in Toulouse

CNES is the French government space agency with its headquarters located in central Paris

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday visited the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) located here, where the two sides will examine further cooperation in the area of space.

CNES, established under President Charles de Gaulle in 1961, is the French government space agency with its headquarters located in central Paris. It is supervised by the French Ministries of Defence and Research.

CNES that operates out of the Toulouse Space Center and Guiana Space Centre also has payloads launched from space centres operated by other countries.

It was formerly responsible for the training of French astronauts, but the last active CNES astronauts transferred to the European Space Agency in 2001.

As of January 2015, CNES is working with Germany and a few other governments to start a modest research effort with the hope to propose a LOX/methane reusable launch vehicle by mid-2015.