Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (SEPRA)

Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (French: Atmospheric Re-entry Phenomena Expertise Department), re-branded in 2000 as Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes Rares Aérospatiaux (French: Rare Aerospace Phenomena Expertise Department), was a department of Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, based in Toulouse and active from 1988 through 2004, succeeding the earlier Groupe d'Etudes des Phénomènes Aérospatieux Non Indentifiés (GEPAN) and assuming their role as investigators of "unidentified aerospace phenomena" and issuers of reports on all findings, expanding the brief to encompass events as the re-entry of orbital debris (including satellites, launch vehicles, etc.). It was succeeded in 2005 by the Groupe d'Études et d'Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non Identifiés (GEIPAN).