PARIS — The French space agency, CNES, has been given detailed marching orders for how it must conduct its affairs over the next three years, with specific targets on funding small startups, winning European Union contracts and supporting the development of one or more French small launch vehicles.
It is also being ordered to streamline its contracting procedures to minimize unneeded paperwork so that smaller companies are better able to access CNES funding and expertise, and to contract out to industry a higher percentage of CNES’s workload.
