Space activity
Launcher safety engineering, from the drawing board to orbit
Founded by a former CNES Launch Safety Engineer at the European Spaceport (CSG), Synergy Media Space helps launcher developers, satellite operators and ground-facility owners get through the safety and regulatory gates of a space programme — Space Operations Act submissions, launch operator licences, ICPE/SEVESO permits and pyrotechnic safety — without slowing the project down.
We have worked on Ariane 5, Ariane 6, VEGA-C, Callisto, Soyuz and Maia, and we co-wrote several of the CSG design rules that new launchers are assessed against today.
Services
What we do
Three complementary practices: risk engineering, regulatory files, and site design & simulation.
Risk Engineering
The technical core of everything we do.
Launcher: ground operations
Risk analysis of AIT operations — assembly, integration, testing — and of every launcher subsystem: pressurised circuits, pyrotechnic chains, electromagnetic environment, mechanical systems.
- Identification of hazardous systems and substances
- Determination of feared events and accident-probability assessment
- Danger-zone computation
- Definition of preventive and protective safety barriers
Launcher in flight (Flight Safety)
Mapping of the nominal trajectory and of nominal and accidental fall-out zones. Definition of the most suitable neutralisation strategy, analysis of localisation and telemetry systems.
Associated ground installations
Risk analysis of the launcher's ground support systems: propellant loading networks, pressurised circuits.
- Identification of hazardous phenomena
- Probability assessment
- Danger-zone computation
Substances we master
Fifteen years of risk analysis across the full spectrum of launcher propellants and energetic materials.
- Hydrogen(liquid / gaseous)
- Oxygen(liquid / gaseous)
- Methane
- Kerosene
- Propane
- Hydrazine
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Nitrogen peroxide(NTO)
- Ethanol
- Butalane
- RDX
- HMX
- ADN(ammonium dinitramide)
- Lead azide
- Helium
- Nitrogen
- Thermal batteries
- Lithium batteries
Regulatory Files
Our analyses feed directly into the files required by French space and industrial law — and we carry them through to a favourable opinion.
- Ground Safety Submission — launcher on ground and associated ground installations
- Flight Safety Submission — launcher in flight
- Pyrotechnic Work Safety Study (EST)
- ICPE / SEVESO file — hazard study and non-technical summary (excluding the environmental impact study)
Design & Simulation
Launch-site design — with AK-Architecture
Buildings, integration flows, hazard distances, exclusion zones and control architecture handled as a single problem, from the first sketch. Reference: the conversion of the Soyuz launch complex (ELS) at the CSG for the MaiaSpace reusable launcher.
Simulation, tools and new operational concepts
Danger-zone computation codes — overpressure, thermal flux, fragment projection —, GIS-based trajectory and fall-out analysis, and support for operations not yet covered by regulations, such as sea-barge landings of reusable stages.
References
Recent work
Mission 1 · MaiaSpace (ArianeGroup subsidiary)
Maia: risk analysis for the design of the launcher on ground
- Risk analysis of every subsystem
- Determination of feared events
- Identification of preventive and protective safety barriers
- Preparation of the Ground Safety Submission
- Submission of the file to CNES
- Validation — certification of the launcher
Mission 2 · MaiaSpace (ArianeGroup subsidiary)
Maia: launcher in flight
- Identification of feared in-flight scenarios
- Trajectory mapping
- Mapping of fall-out zones
- Proposal of a neutralisation strategy
- Preparation of the Flight Safety Submission file
- Submission of the file to CNES, followed through to launcher certification
Mission 3 · CNES
Danger-zone simulator
Development for CNES of a danger-zone simulator for launchers on ground and for the propellant tanks used to load the launcher. Mission carried out with Synergy Analytics.
Mission 4 · MaiaSpace · with AK-Architecture
Conversion of the Soyuz launch complex at the CSG
- Modelling of the existing buildings (gantry, methane zone, etc.)
- Modelling of the modifications
- Assembly of the building-permit application
- Follow-through until the building permit was granted
Mission 5 · MaiaSpace
Risk analysis for the design of MaiaSpace's ground installations
- Identification of the ICPE headings relevant to the project
- Identification of the ICPE regime relevant to the project
- Identification of hazardous phenomena
- Support for danger-zone computation (launcher and ground installations)
- Determination of the probability of hazardous phenomena
Track record
Founder track record at CNES/CSG (2012–2025)
Before Synergy Media Space, our founder was in charge of launch-system safety at the European Spaceport:
- Ariane 6 — most safety submissions for the launcher and its ground fluid processes; ICPE/SEVESO file for the launch complex; first approval of opto-pyrotechnic chains on a European launcher
- Callisto (CNES/JAXA/DLR reusable demonstrator) — sole safety lead; the constraints defined served as a basis for future reusable-flight rules
- VEGA-C — design validation and ICPE/SEVESO file for the launch complex
- Ariane 5, VEGA, Soyuz — operations phase; Soyuz safety referent
- Co-author of the CSG regulation on co-activity of hazardous operations, which enabled record launch cadences with zero accidents
- ICPE/SEVESO files for the Pariacabo port and the Guiana bomb-disposal centre
- Invited risk-control expert in PDR/CDR reviews (Ariane 6 ground fluid processes, payload separation systems; OneWeb, O3b, Galileo campaigns)
