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Indian and French private space companies signed three agreements at the first International Space Summit, held in Paris on 9-10 September 2026.
Safran Space signed contracts worth over 5 million euros with Dhruva Space for systems feeding India's planned SBS-III space-surveillance constellation of 52 satellites.
French launch-services provider RIDE will launch two satellites for TakeMeToSpace, described as India's first designer of orbital data centres.
AXISCADES Technologies signed a commercial cooperation agreement with U-Space of France covering India's microsatellite market.
The summit produced 51 announcements linked to about 20 billion euros in space investments, contracts and commitments, with nearly 120 foreign delegations attending.
India's national space agency, under the Department of Space; the government counterpart to CNES in bilateral space cooperation
France's national space agency and India's longest-standing space partner in Europe, with joint Earth-observation and climate missions
Single-window autonomous body under the Department of Space that authorises and promotes private space activity in India - the reform that makes company-to-company deals of this kind possible
Space situational awareness means tracking what is in orbit - working satellites, dead ones and debris - so that collisions can be predicted and avoided. A space-surveillance constellation such as SBS-III does this from orbit rather than only from ground radars.
Simple Analogy: Air traffic control, but for objects circling the Earth.
CNES established; France becomes one of the earliest space partners India works with
Megha-Tropiques, a joint ISRO-CNES satellite studying the tropical water cycle and climate, is launched
SARAL, carrying the French AltiKa altimeter, is launched for ocean and sea-level studies
IN-SPACe is created, opening Indian space activity to private companies
TRISHNA, a joint ISRO-CNES thermal infrared Earth-observation mission for land-surface temperature and water-use monitoring
First International Space Summit in Paris; three India-France private-sector agreements signed
GS Paper 3 > Science and Technology - space, achievements of Indians in science; GS Paper 2 > Bilateral agreements
General Awareness > Current events, science and technology
India's planned space-based surveillance constellation of 52 satellites, to be deployed between 2027 and 2030 for tracking objects in orbit.
A small satellite, far lighter than conventional spacecraft, used for communication, remote sensing and technology demonstration.
Single-window body under the Department of Space, set up in 2020, that authorises and promotes private space activity in India.