Space Law in France: The Space Operations Act, Debris Rules and the 2026 Changes

Space law in France matters well beyond France. Europe’s spaceport is in French Guiana, commercial launches from it need French authorisation, and the French Space Operations Act also governs what happens when a French satellite changes hands, which is why a deal as large as Amazon’s purchase of Globalstar can end up waiting on Paris.

This guide explains the regime as of 9 November 2026, using the consolidated Act on Légifrance, the 2008 finance law and CNES’s English version of the technical regulation. Article numbers are from the Act unless I say otherwise.

The Act and who it catches

The loi n° 2008-518 du 3 juin 2008 relative aux opérations spatiales is usually called the LOS in French and the FSOA in English. Article 2 requires prior authorisation from the administrative authority in three situations.

First, any operator of any nationality that launches a space object from French territory or from means or installations under French jurisdiction, or returns one there. That covers commercial launches from the Guiana Space Centre.

Second, any French operator launching from another State’s territory, from facilities under foreign jurisdiction, or from an area outside any State’s sovereignty, or returning an object to such places.

Third, any French national or company with its seat in France that procures the launch of a space object, whether or not it is the operator, and any French operator that controls a space object or a group of coordinated objects in orbit.

So a French company buying a launch on a US rocket needs French authorisation, whatever licences the launch provider holds at home.

Transfers of control and in-orbit purchases

Article 3 requires prior authorisation for any transfer to a third party of control of a space object whose launch or control was authorised under the Act. As amended in 2023, it also requires a French operator to obtain authorisation before taking control of an object whose launch or control was never authorised under French law. On my reading, that captures the purchase of a foreign satellite already in orbit.

This is the provision that makes French law relevant to satellite mergers. Our analysis of the FCC’s approval of Amazon’s Globalstar deal explains why that closing is still waiting on French authorisation.

How authorisation works

Under Article 4, the authority checks the applicant’s moral, financial and professional guarantees, including those of shareholders where relevant, and its compliance with the technical regulation. Licences can certify an operator’s guarantees for a set period. No authorisation can be granted if the operation would compromise national defence or France’s international commitments.

CNES, the national space agency, checks applications against the technical regulation on behalf of the ministry responsible for space. It reports that more than 150 authorisations for orbital systems and more than 120 for launch systems have been granted since 2008.

Article 5 lets the authority attach conditions, including to limit space debris risks, Article 8 lets it issue instructions at any time, and Article 9 allows suspension or withdrawal. Under Article 11, launching, returning or transferring control without authorisation, or carrying on after a suspension, is punishable by a fine of €200,000, rising to three years’ imprisonment and a €300,000 fine where national defence is harmed.

Article 12 requires launched objects to be entered in a national register kept by CNES on the State’s behalf, which is how France meets the Registration Convention.

Article 11-1 takes CNES public missions and State defence operations outside the authorisation chapter, although the technical rules still apply to the latter, with derogations only so far as strictly necessary.

The technical regulation after June 2024

The real engineering content is in a ministerial order of 31 March 2011, which CNES calls the RT. A major revision of 28 June 2024 applies to authorisation applications submitted on or after 1 July 2024. CNES publishes an English consolidation of the revised order, and some of its rules go further than the FCC’s five-year deorbit rule for US-licensed satellites.

For launches, Article 20 of the order sets a maximum collective risk of 2 x 10^-5 for causing at least one casualty during the flight phase. Launcher elements placed in orbit are expected to make a controlled reentry. Only in exceptional, justified cases may an operator fall back on an uncontrolled one, and then it must use its best efforts to meet a 10^-4 objective.

For satellites, Article 41-9 caps the time in orbit after disposal at three times the operational phase and never more than 25 years, or three years for systems that operate for less than a year. Article 41-13 requires satellites without propulsion to fly with an apogee below 600 km.

For constellations, Chapter VI applies to groups of at least ten objects and adds tougher rules for “mega-constellations” of at least one hundred. Each satellite in a mega-constellation must carry propulsion for collision avoidance (Article 48-5). In the lowest protected region, its time in orbit after disposal is capped at five years, or two years if the constellation has 1,000 or more satellites (Article 48-7). Article 48-10 even sets a brightness objective to protect astronomy.

Article 55 phases some of this in: for applications made by 31 December 2026, disposal reliability thresholds are slightly relaxed and the operator need only show its “best possible strategy” towards the lifetime limit within 25 years. Further transitional rules run to the end of 2028. Our explainer on the space debris mitigation guidelines sets out the international baseline.

Liability, insurance and the State guarantee

In my view, Title IV is the most commercially important part of the Act. Article 13 makes the operator liable without fault for damage caused to third parties on the ground and in airspace, and liable for fault elsewhere, including in orbit. That liability ends, except for intentional fault, once the obligations in the authorisation have been met, and at the latest one year after they fall due.

Article 6 requires insurance or another approved financial guarantee for as long as Article 13 liability can arise, up to the ceilings set under Articles 16 and 17. The cover must also benefit the State, the European Space Agency and its member states.

Above that ceiling, Article 15 provides a State guarantee for an operator ordered to compensate a third party, for operations conducted from France, another EU State or an EEA State, within the limits of the finance law. Article 119 of the amending finance law of 30 December 2008 provides that the ceiling “sera compris entre 50 millions d’euros et 70 millions d’euros”, so each authorisation fixes a figure in that range. The guarantee does not apply to intentional fault.

If France pays as a launching State under the Liability Convention, Article 14 lets it recover from the operator only up to the same ceilings, save for intentional fault.

Articles 19 and 20 set up a statutory cross-waiver: participants bound by contract cannot sue each other for damage to a participant, save for intentional fault or an express contrary clause for certain phases. Our piece on cross-waivers in launch services agreements explains why US contracts have to achieve the same result by drafting.

Since the ordinance of 23 February 2022, Article 13-1 allows the operator’s sole liability to third parties to be adjusted by an agreement with the State for services performed in the interest of national defence.

Defence and space data: the 2022, 2023 and 2026 changes

The Act has been amended repeatedly with defence in mind. Ordonnance n° 2022-232 of 23 February 2022 added, among other things, Article 11-2 on transfers of control to the State and the Article 13-1 derogation, and revised the space data rules. Loi n° 2023-703 of 1 August 2023, the military programming law for 2024 to 2030, amended Articles 1 to 4, 7 to 9, 11, 11-1 and 20-1, including the Article 3 rule on taking control of objects never authorised under French law.

The latest change came with loi n° 2026-791 of 16 August 2026, which updated that programming law. Article 28 of the 2026 law rewrote Article 25-1 and created Article 25-2, both in force since 19 August 2026. Title VII of the Act already required primary operators of space-origin data carrying out technically defined activities in France to declare them in advance, with penalties of three years’ imprisonment and a €300,000 fine for breaches. The new Article 25-2 makes it an offence, punishable by the same penalties and subject to authorisation under a decree, to capture, record, transmit, store, use or disseminate space-origin data about zones listed under Article L. 6224-1 of the Transport Code, the zones where capturing images from aircraft is already prohibited.

Official missions under the justice, defence, customs and interior ministers are excluded. In effect, satellite imagery now follows the existing ban on aerial image capture over sensitive sites.

France and international law

France signed the Artemis Accords on 7 June 2022, becoming the 20th signatory, according to NASA. It has no space resources statute.

The bigger change ahead is European. The EU Space Act, proposed by the Commission on 25 June 2025, would set common authorisation, safety and sustainability rules across the Union. As our report on the Irish Presidency’s October 2026 compromise text shows, it is still in Council negotiation, and how it sits alongside national regimes such as the FSOA is one of the points being worked out.

What I would watch

The first is the end of the first transitional window on 31 December 2026. From 2027 applicants must meet the full disposal reliability and lifetime rules in the 2024 order, which will matter most for constellation operators.

The second is the implementing decree for Article 25-2, which will decide how imagery companies can obtain authorisation and how the offence applies to data collected outside France.

The third is the EU Space Act. If it is adopted in something close to its current form, France will have to decide which parts of the FSOA and its technical regulation survive as national rules.

Anuj KumarEditor-in-Chief

Anuj Kumar is the founder of Legal Desire Media and publishes Fashion Law Journal and Space Law Journal.

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