The Universe is continuously the scene of cataclysmic events capable of releasing a large amount of energy within typically few milli-seconds up to several years at maximum. Before the fifties, the (now) so-called time domain astronomy was mainly restricted to few observations of supernovae and nearby galactic flaring stars in the optical band. Between 1960-1970, a first technical revolution came with the development of the first x-ray and gamma-ray telescopes allowing the discovery of new unexpected transients at high-energy such as the Gamma-ray Bursts (GRB). Since then, the accelerating improvement of our observational capabilities through the all electromagnetic spectrum with facilities enabling us to monitor the transient sky at a high cadency has widened our vision of the Universe. The population of the transient phenomena is now very diverse in terms of their astrophysical origin, the amount of energy they release, their timescales and their distances. The second major revolution of the time domain astronomy is coincident with the birth of the multi-messenger astronomy starting the last decade, first with the arrival of the large-scale high-energy particle detectors (Auger Observatory, ANTARES, AMANDA/IceCube) and then in 2015 with the first observations of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo interferometers.
In 2021, the French scientific community will have a key role to play in the multi-messenger time domain astronomy with the launch of the SVOM Chinese-French satellite. SVOM will pursue the great legacy of the Swift and Fermi missions by studying the transient sky across a large fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum from the near-infrared wavelengths to the gamma-ray domain (up to 5 MeV). Thanks to its unique combination of instruments onboard the spacecraft and the development of a dedicated follow-up system on ground, SVOM will allow to perform fast follow-up observations of any transient source with a high duty cycle. In this talk, I will present the SVOM mission, its main scientific objectives and the last development status. I will also describe the SVOM observational strategies according to the different scientific programs as well as how the international and French scientific communities could have access to the SVOM instruments for the next decade.