Philippe Lier, new Director of Europe’s spaceport

Marie-Anne Clair: four years in the service of Europe’s spaceport

Marie-Anne Clair joined the French Space Agency in 1983. She has dedicated her career to space exploration. She was, for example, in charge of Orbital Systems at CNES from 2017 to 2019, bringing major Mars exploration missions to fruition and establishing key innovative partnerships.

She has been Director of Europe’s spaceport since November 2019. Over the last four years, major renovation projects have been launched at Europe’s spaceport, in areas such as operations, digitalisation, greening up the spaceport’s energy supply, opening up to new launch operators, and improving competitiveness and working methods. 

Marie-Anne Clair will take up her new position as Head of the Technical and Digital Directorate at CNES on 1 December 2023.

Philippe Lier takes over as head of Europe’s spaceport

Philippe Lier is a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (SUPELEC). He joined the CNES  in Toulouse in 1990 as a dependability engineer. He went on to join the image quality teams at CNES and worked extensively on the HELIOS I and HELIOS II defence programmes. 

Philippe Lier was onboard engineer in charge of operations for the JASON1 satellite before joining the project teams as systems manager for the PARASOL micro-satellite, launched in 2004. 

From 2005 to 2011, he was head of the image quality department, responsible for preparing the arrival of PLEIADES and CSO, among other projects. He was then appointed head of the “environment” projects department and advisor to the French delegation for ESA’s Earth Observation programme.

In 2016 he became Deputy Director in charge of scientific projects and advisor to the French delegation for ESA’s Science programme, then Deputy Director of Orbital Systems and Applications.

Since April 2023, he has been Deputy Director in charge of Operations and Technical Resources at Europe’s spaceport. He is also an auditor at the 47th session of the Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale (IHEDN, French Institute of Advanced Studies in National Defence). 

Philippe Lier takes up his new position on 1 December 2023.