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At its meeting today in Paris, the Council of the European Space Agency (ESA) elected Austrian geophysicist Josef Aschbacher as the next Director General. In early July 2021, he will replace ESA’s chief chief Jan Wörner, the space agency announced on Thursday. The 58-year-old geophysicist from Tyrol is currently ESA Director of Earth Observation Programs and Head of ESRIN, ESA’s Center for Earth Observation near Rome.
Aschbacher beat his competitors from Spain and Norway in a hearing and was proposed as the only candidate for today’s vote by the president of the Swedish ESA Council, Anna Rathsman. The ESA Council is essentially the supervisory council of the space agency.
Little feeling
The fact that Aschbacher is an Austrian at the top of ESA is considered a minor sensation. So far, the ESA Director General has been provided mainly by large member states such as Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, while Austria only contributes around one percent to the ESA budget (6.7 billion euros in 2020 ).
Aschbacher, born July 7, 1962 in Ellmau, studied meteorology and geophysics at the University of Innsbruck. He has more than 30 years of professional experience in international organizations. In 2016 he became Director of Earth Observation at ESA, the first Austrian to hold a director position on the ESA Board of Directors. With the division he manages the highest sub-budget of the space agency.
Climate protection minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) sent Aschbacher “warmly” congratulations on his new position. The next head of ESA has “extensive experience” and is an “excellent cast”.
Space instead of stable
At the age of seven, Josef Aschbacher experienced the moon landing on a flickering television at his parents’ mountain farm in Ellmau, Tyrol. The fact that someone goes out for a walk on the moon left a deep impression on him and caused his fascination with space, his choice of studies and career. “Working at ESA has always been my dream,” he once told APA. Now the 58-year-old is the first Austrian to head the European Space Agency.
This high altitude flight was in no way planned; Rather, Aschbacher, who was born on July 7, 1962, was the eldest son of six children who took over his parents’ farm. But the boy was eager to learn and had to make daily visits to the parish library in order to borrow a new book. Scholarships and part-time jobs made it possible to attend high school and study. His fascination with the lunar landing made him study meteorology and geophysics at the University of Innsbruck, something “with which you can work with space,” he recalled.
Dream fails
Space was to shape his entire professional life, even if he was denied the dream of arriving himself: as a student, he wanted to become Austria’s first astronaut and requested the “Austromir” mission, without success: in 1991, Franz Viehböck flew as the first astronaut on what was then the Russian space station “Mir”.
Aschbacher joined ESA immediately after completing his dissertation in 1989. His first station was the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN) in Frascati, near Rome. After stays in Asia, where he taught earth observation methods with radar and image processing technologies at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand and represented ESA’s interests in Southeast Asia, he returned to Europe in 1994 During his seven years at the EU Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy, Aschbacher helped develop the EU Earth observation program now known as “Copernicus”. Since 2001 he has worked for seven years at the ESA headquarters in Paris.
Program Director
The father of three later returned to ESRIN in Italy, where he was responsible for planning and coordinating the program. In 2016 he became Director of Earth Observation at ESA, the first Austrian to hold a director position on ESA’s ten-member Board of Directors. With the Earth observation division, he manages the highest sub-budget of the space agency and is responsible for all ESA Earth observation missions and related applications.
The author of more than 100 scientific publications is not only a space bureaucrat, but also pursues observing the earth with passion. When you see the destruction of the Amazon in satellite images, for example, it says, according to the weekly time: “These are the lungs of the earth, and are we cutting them down? Faith in reason is lost. It is criminal how we treat this planet.”
The fact that Aschbacher, an Austrian, replaces the current CEO Jan Wörner as head of ESA in the middle of next year is seen as a minor sensation. So far, the ESA Director General has been made up mainly of large member states such as Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, while Austria contributes around one percent to the ESA budget (€ 6.7 billion in 2020) .
