Bringing together around one hundred representatives of the French space sector, the meeting focused on export and international cooperation—two areas that have become essential to the competitiveness, resilience and sovereignty of France’s national space ecosystem.
Launched in 2025 by the French Ministry for the Armed Forces during the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, the Pacte Espace is designed to establish a lasting dialogue between the French State and companies operating across the space sector, whether in civil, defence or dual-use markets. Led by the DGA with the support of GIFAS and Alliance NewSpace France, it also involves the armed forces and may bring in other public organisations with recognised space expertise, including CNES and ONERA.
The initiative responds to a profound transformation of the space industry. The growth of New Space, faster innovation cycles, the expansion of satellite constellations, increasing security challenges and intensifying international competition all require new forms of cooperation. To maintain an agile, high-performing and resilient industrial and technological base, government and industry must share their perspectives more effectively, anticipate requirements, identify critical technologies and connect operational needs with available industrial capabilities more rapidly. These principles are at the heart of the Pacte Espace charter.

The second plenary session provided an opportunity to review the implementation of the Pacte and to examine its third pillar, export and cooperation, in greater depth. The initiative is structured around three priorities: acceleration and competitiveness; standardisation and modular architectures, which are essential to interoperable and scalable systems; and export and cooperation, which address economic, industrial and strategic objectives.

Discussions highlighted the importance of stronger support for companies seeking to develop international business, including assistance with export licence applications. They also underlined the need to diversify cooperation both within Europe and with emerging partners in India, Asia and the Gulf region. The DGA also presented new support mechanisms, including its “Europe platform”, created to structure DGA action at European level and help French projects engage more effectively with the institutions in Brussels.

For Semip–Codechamp, taking part in this plenary session is fully aligned with our strategy and our commitment to a sovereign French space industry. Our group designs and manufactures high-precision position sensors in France for mission-critical mechanisms. Our optical encoders and precision potentiometers can be integrated into antenna pointing mechanisms, attitude-control systems, scanning and instrument mechanisms, solar-array drive assemblies and robotic arms.

In such applications, position measurement is not a secondary function. It contributes directly to pointing accuracy, stability, repeatability and mechanism reliability throughout the mission lifetime. Space constraints (including low mass and compact dimensions, vibration, shock, temperature variations, radiation, long operating life and stringent traceability requirements) call for robust, qualifiable solutions that often need to be tailored to each programme. Semip–Codechamp’s contribution to the space value chain is built precisely on this combination of precision, reliability and custom engineering capability.

Our participation also provided an opportunity to engage with organisations reflecting the full diversity of the French space sector: prime contractors, equipment manufacturers, SMEs, New Space start-ups, public institutions and professional associations. This diversity is a major strength. It encourages the circulation of requirements, the combination of complementary expertise and the creation of partnerships capable of accelerating the transition from innovation to operational capability.
Semip–Codechamp shares the ambition underpinning the Pacte Espace: to anticipate change more effectively, accelerate innovation and reinforce permanent dialogue between government and industry. We intend to contribute actively to this momentum by bringing our experience in position sensors for critical environments, our ability to develop customised solutions and our strong French industrial footprint.

Space sovereignty depends on architectures, platforms and services, but also on control of the essential components and equipment that make those systems reliable and effective. By participating in the Pacte Espace, Semip–Codechamp reaffirms its determination to help build a competitive, cooperative and resilient national space sector, one capable of meeting the current and future requirements of the French armed forces while bringing French technologies to international markets.