JANUS (for Jeunes en Apprentissage pour la réalisation de Nanosatellites au sein des Universités et des écoles de l’enseignement Supérieur) is a student nanosatellite project geared towards getting students from French schools and universities engaged in space. To this end, CNES gives them the chance to develop their own cubesats—small satellites weighing between 1 and 15 kilograms—with an instrument payload and send them into orbit.

JANUS thus allows students to get to grips with the development logic and execution of space projects, including project management, development planning, launch, reception of telemetry and transmission of telecommands, data exploitation and more besides. It also promotes teaching of science that relies strongly on hands-on experimentation across the spectrum of space disciplines such as mechanics, thermal control, avionics, attitude control and power systems. In return, the projects test new satellite and/or instrument technologies in orbit likely to be of value to the scientific and industrial community.

More than 10 French schools and universities in partnership with scientific and industrial laboratories are involved in JANUS: the University of Montpellier, the University of Aix-Marseille, ISAE-SUPAERO, the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole des Mines de Paris, Paris Est Créteil University, Paris Diderot University, Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris Sud Cachan University, the University of Grenoble, the University of Nice Côte d’Azur and the ELISA engineering school in association with the University of Lille.