Massive expansion in the largest space ecosystem in Europe

The CDE has been growing rapidly since its creation in 2019. Staff numbers have increased every year and are expected to reach 500 employees in 2025. The CDE is progressively building its base in close proximity to the Toulouse Space Centre (CST), at the heart of the biggest space ecosystem in Europe, in order to develop synergies with the teams of the CNES in a dynamic environment of skills transfer and accelerated expertise concentration, especially in defence satellite control, space surveillance and the command of military operations in space.

By 2025, the infrastructure of the CDE will constitute both a visible symbol of France’s ambition and a key operational resource, with its Command and Control Centre for Military Space Operations. The infrastructure will also include a Training Centre for Military Space Operations (CFOSM) and the Defense Space Innovation Laboratory (LISA). The NATO Space Center of Excellence (COE), an international military organization that NATO has entrusted to France, will also be located close to the CDE, thereby creating  opportunities for synergy between the two organizations.

Reinforced space cooperation with foreign partners

In a domain that is by nature global, multilateral and bilateral cooperation agreements are not only key to operational efficiency, effectiveness and resilience but are also vital for supplementing France’s military capabilities in space, improving our knowledge of an increasingly complex, densely populated and contested space environment and responding to future challenges.

The CDE is developing its international cooperation with the main players in this domain. In 2020, France joined the Combined Space Operations (CSpO) initiative, which brings together Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The CSpO forum is a unique forum for discussing operational, legal, policy or capability issues, with the aim of establishing in the near future a basis for coordinating allied capabilities, increasing their resilience in the support of multi-domain operations, guaranteeing free access to space and protecting space assets. In addition, the CDE is developing bilateral cooperation in the operational sphere with several foreign allies and partners, including, but not limited to, the United States, Germany, Italy, Norway, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The framework cooperation agreement for space surveillance signed with Germany in March 2020 in Bonn is one example: this agreement enables the two countries to federate their energies in a global space surveillance project for defence and security and to establish the fundamental principles of this project in a bilateral framework.

Generating the skills for the new military space professions

One priority of the space defence strategy is to generate the required expertise in the Ministry of the Armed Forces, to attract talents and to provide them with tailored training. Since the creation of French Space Command (CDE), training in space defence has been based on : 

• general training (“space courses”), created and organized by the CDE for the personnel of the Ministry and for other external ministries and bodies (CNES, ONERA etc.). These courses comprise three independent sessions tailored to the functional level of the participants (basic, advanced and strategic) and provide a 360° view of the specific challenges of the space domain for overall defence. Every year, almost a hundred people attend these courses, and the number of students is constantly increasing;
• recruitment of young specialists having at least a specialized master’s degree in the space domain;
• specific diploma courses in space studies at the major French scientific and technological schools, provided for officers in mid-career who already have a postgraduate diploma (masters M2 or engineer), in preparation for taking up positions as officers in space programmes;
• operational and technical skills transfer by the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) to establish the core capability for military space operations and to provide suitably qualified personnel for the future Command and Control Centre for Military Space Operations. Feedback of experience from these initial courses is essential for improving and optimizing future training programmes, identifying the new professions, requisite skills and resources, and for training future experts;
• internships, organized in partnership with the major industrial, institutional and academic players in the space domain (in France and abroad).

The Training Centre for Military Space Operations (CFOSM) in Toulouse is located in close proximity to the key operational players and is the facility established by the CDE to generate expertise in the operational aspects of space defence. It contributes to establishing the professional training curricula of the personnel assigned to the CDE.

Operational preparation based on national and international exercises

The development of expertise in the space domain will in particular require military exercises to train operating personnel in the full spectrum of military space operations, from the tactical to the strategic level. Four exercises contribute to meeting this need:

• Schriever Wargame: multinational political and strategic exercise;
• Global Sentinel: multinational tactical and operational exercise dedicated to space surveillance;
• Sprint Advanced Concept Training: exercise designed to advance technological development in space surveillance in a highly competitive environment, with about fifty commercial operators, including French operators;
• AsterX: tactical and operational exercise organized by France and planned to be held annually after its first edition in 2021. The space assets, operating procedures and systems deployed by operators are stress tested in order to train the units of the CDE in military space operations in a realistic simulated environment, to provide objective data on future space operational needs and to develop cooperation with international partners and private industry.