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1963
The Observatory gets into space research

Starting in the 1950s, France developed rockets that were rapidly used by astronomers and geophysicists, helped by the CNES (Centre national d’études spatiales), created in 1961. At the Observatory, Jean-Louis Steinberg (1922-2016), supported by Jean-François Denisse, who had become director of the Observatory and then president of the CNES, created in 1963 a space astronomy department that used these rockets and also installed experiments on board Soviet and American space probes. This laboratory developed rapidly, and its activity involved many different domains. It is now one of the most important at the Observatory.

caption : The Rubis rocket in 1965 - credits : droits réservés