SEREB

SEREB, the Société d'étude et de réalisation d'engins balistiques (company for the study and production of ballistic devices), was a French state-owned aerospace company. It was founded on 17 September 1959 with the task of creating missiles capable of carrying French atomic weapons, and it was set up initially to develop two-stage ballistic missiles for the French nuclear deterrent. When the national space agency CNES was formed in 1961 it took over much of the civil research, while SEREB's own work lived on in the rockets of the period, including the Saphir. Examples of that work can be seen at the Musée de l'air et de l'espace at Paris-Le Bourget airport. The company was headquartered at the Centre d'achèvement et d'essais des propulseurs et engins at Saint-Médard-en-Jalles in the Gironde. In 1970 it merged with Nord Aviation to form Aérospatiale, which was itself absorbed into EADS in July 2000.