Roy Gibson was ESA’s very first Director General. Born in 1924, he led the Agency from its foundation in 1975 until 1980.
Ulf Merbold was the first ESA astronaut to fly in space, as part of the crew of the STS-9 Spacelab 1 mission on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1983.
Claudie Heigneré made history in 2001 as the first female European astronaut on a ‘taxi flight’ to the International Space Station.
Gerhard Schwehm was ESA’s first planetary scientist, working on the Giotto mission that provided the first close-up images of a comet nucleus. He then became Mission Manager for the Rosetta mission until his retirement.
Paolo Ferri dedicated 20 years to Rosetta, first as Operations Manager, then as Flight Director, and eventually as Head of the Mission Operations Department.
Elsa Montagnon is currently Head of the Mission Operations Division. Previously, she was Spacecraft Operations Manager for BepiColombo, Europe’s first mission to Mercury, launched in 2018.
Josef Aschbacher became ESA Director General in 2021. From 2016–21, he was ESA Director for Earth Observation Programmes He has been a key leader of the European Copernicus programme, which is now considered to be one of the most successful Earth observation programmes in the world.
📹 European Space Agency (ESA)
📸 European Space Agency (ESA)
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