In 1971, the IGN and the CNES form the "Group of research of geodesic space". This collaboration between the IGN and the CNES continues with the launching of the program SPOT the 5. The launching of satellite SPOT-1 takes place the 22.Six days after take SPOT-1 in orbit, the IGN create its programme of "data bases launches", the "data bases". The data base of the cities, the data base of leveling distribution, the data base of geodesic distribution, the aerial missions data base and the toponyms data base were progressively established . The "Topo data base", bases of topographic data digitized, covers from now on the whole of France and includes nearly two million toponyms.