Rocketing Ambitions: Inside France’s Booming Space & Satellite Industry in 2025
France’s space journey began in the Cold War era with a quest for strategic independence. General de Gaulle established CNES in 1961 to make France an autonomous space power cnes.fr. This goal was dramatically realized on 26 November 1965, when France’s Diamant rocket launched the Astérix satellite into orbit from Algerian soil – making France the third country to launch its own satellite cnes.fr cnes.fr. This early success kick-started a proud legacy of French “firsts,” including the opening of the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou in 1965 and the development of French satellite series like FR-1/FR-2 and scientific payloads through the 1960s.