Strategy Director, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
Jean-Marc ASTORG
Jean-Marc ASTORG
After he graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures engineering school in 1985, Jean-Marc Astorg joined the CNES Launch Vehicles Directorate to work on the HERMES space plane project. Since 1991, he has been deeply involved in the Ariane launcher family, taking increasing responsibilities in the development of the different versions of the European launcher. In particular, he was the project manager of the Ariane 5 new upper stage ESC-A development from 1997 to 2003, which has been 100% successful till the Ariane 5 retirement in 2023. He then directed the ‘Soyuz in French Guiana’ project, from 2003 to the first launch in 2011 consisting to build a launch pad in French Guiana for the Russian Soyouz rocket. In 2011, he became the CNES Director of Procurement, Sales and Legal Affairs also in charge of Intellectual Property. In 2015, he was nominated the CNES director of Launch Vehicles, managing a team of 300 engineers in charge of the CNES support to Ariane 5 exploitation, the construction of the Ariane 6 launch pad and the preparation of future launchers through demonstrators like Prometheus, Callisto and Themis. In 2022, he was nominated the CNES director of Strategy, which includes in the new CNES organisation the strategy but also prospective, future studies & technology maturation, preparation of new programs, industrial policy and interfaces with private and public partners.
