Marie-Anne Clair, graduate EPF 1982, at the head of the CNES of Toulouse

Actualités

Mis à jour le 14/10/2021

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Marie-Anne Clair, who graduated from the EPF in 1982, was appointed Director of Orbital Systems of the CNES in Toulouse (France), the French Space Agency, in January 2017.

Eearly in 2017, Marie-Anne Clair and Geneviève Campan were appointed at the head of the CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy in Europe) in Toulouse, replacing Marc Pircher, Director of the Toulouse Space Center (CST) since July 1st 2007, since retired.

These appointments are part of the vast reorganization launched by the president of the CNES, Jean-Yves Le Gall. Geneviève Campan and Marie-Anne Clair, two leading women in the French space sector, took the lead of the CST, CNES's largest technical and operational center (more than 1,700 people), working on systems design and development orbitals.

Marie-Anne Clair thus becomes Director of Orbital Systems.

A outstanding career in the space industry

A graduate of the EPF in 1982 and ESTA in 1983, Marie-Anne Clair joined the CNES in 1983 in the direction of launchers and was then transferred to Toulouse in 1988, as a Satellite Manager. She became Head of Division in 2002 and subsequently of Microsatellite service, in charge of CNES Myriade's scientific microsatellite sector, then Head of the scientific satellite department, Studies of the Universe, in charge of design, development and realization of Satellites of the Myriade sector in 2008.

In 2009, she became Assistant Director "Balloons", responsible for the design, manufacture, verification, qualification and operational implementation of different types of stratospheric and tropospheric balloons for the benefit of the European scientific community.

Launch Assistant Director from 2013 to 2016, focused on strategic issues and on the steering of current and future launcher projects, in preparation for the Ariane 6 file, Marie-Anne has been Director of Orbital Systems of the CNES since January 1st 2017.

Marie-Anne Clair also has the title of "Chevalier in National Order of Merit", a Silver Medal of the Academy of Air and Space and the title of "Chevalier of the Legion of Honor".