For the director of the Toulouse Space Center, “the challenge is to maintain our excellence and our expertise”
One year, Thierry Levoir is the head of establishment of the space center of Toulouse, a site which gathers 1700 employees. Also director of the DNO (digital management of exploitation and operations) and central director of industrial safety and security, he gives us the broad lines of the future of the site.
You have been running the Toulouse Space Center (CST) for a year, but you know all the corridors of this site…
Yes, because I arrived here almost 28 years ago. At CNES (National Center for Space Studies), we have the incredible opportunity to be able to change projects, professions, functions, and work with a whole host of actors from all countries. So, while remaining an employee at the Toulouse Space Center (CST), one travels through very different paths. Me, I entered in 1994 to do data processing, at the time of the stone age of the web, and today I am director of industrial safety and security for all of CNES and head of this center.
What does the Toulouse Space Center represent in 2022?
We are a technical and operational center with 1,700 employees, with expertise in space systems from design to operations and data processing for communities and citizens. We also welcome subcontractors as well as ESA (European Space Agency), EUSPA (European Union Space Agency), Space Command and soon the NATO Center of Excellence, the space division of the IGN (National Institute for Geographic Information) for which we are renovating a building.
“New players in space”
What are the site’s projects and ambitions?
The challenge remains to maintain the operational excellence of this center but also to reflect on our environmental policy. We are vigilant about the impact of our developments, our instruments, our platforms and even on data processing -for example, we optimize the algorithms to be the least consuming-. We must also reduce the footprint of the establishment with the renovation of the buildings since most were built in the 1970s and that, out of 53, less than ten have been renovated. We will follow a logic of elevation for certain buildings and destruction for others. This development challenge goes hand in hand with the opening of the center and taking into account the societal transformation around the way of working. Finally, for CNES, it is a question of maintaining the anchoring of space in the Toulouse and regional ecosystem (15,000 employees). More and more new actors are interested in the use of many spatial data and our expertise is sought after. Our center is opening up even more to start-ups and SMEs.
However, this opening was a point of tension last spring with some of the employees…
The objectives and performance contract communicated a lot about New Space and it was scary. But when someone talks to me about this conflict, I see it rather as the employees’ attachment to CNES and to French space policy. The CNES is a set of sharp skills and people do not want to break this machine which is goldsmithery. Employees are afraid that opening up to start-ups, which are more and more numerous, will take away from our budgets. But no, the balances are not affected, the budgets are different.
“Going to Mars is a dream and it’s part of human curiosity”
Do you feel rejection for space projects from the general public?
No, it’s still very positive. Look at the enthusiasm for Thomas Pesquet’s missions, the passion for exploration and everyone can see the contribution of space to the problem of climate change with measurements from space. Mapping galaxies (Gaia mission), going to Mars (Curiosity, Perseverance), it makes you dream and it is part of human curiosity; we understand that we are very small in the Universe.
You are in charge of security and that of computer systems is sensitive today. Are you vulnerable?
Everyone is! We have very strong regulations, we comply with them, sometimes going further. This is an important subject, which costs more and more because the systems to be protected are more and more complex with more and more potential flaws. All eliminations must be warded off, such as an attack on an air conditioning system that can cause damage in a data center.
Recovery of the French pavilion from the Dubai Expo
The Toulouse Space Center has recovered the France pavilion from the Dubai exhibition, a building that can be dismantled and reassembled. It will be installed in the large meadow in the middle of the site. “We are going to make it a totem place, a place of mediation where we will be able to welcome and receive people from the end of 2025. It will include an amphitheater, a Creativity Lab space, a Fab Lab”, explains Thierry Levoir.
In addition, an elevation of the Space Command Center building is planned to increase from 60 people accommodated to 150 by next year before this Command constructs its own building on the other side of the ring road to up to 400 people.