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Environment Minister Eleonore Gewessler and ESA Chief Designate Josef Aschbacher speak today about the importance of space research for climate protection.
10:28 am, December 18, 2020
With the Tyrolean Geophysicist Josef Aschbacher will be Austrian for the first time from next July European Space Agency ESA standing out. The ESA Council met with the 58-year-old next Thursday in Paris Managing Director organized. He solves with Early July 2021 the head of ESA, Jan Wörner, announced the space agency. At a press conference, Aschbacher said he was “very honored” by the “great challenge.”
The current Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programs announced his detailed plan when you took office present. In any case, one of its priorities will be to strengthen cooperation between ESA and the EU, with which it can look back on a long history of cooperation. He also wants to continue Wörner’s initiatives to intensify the commercialization of the European space industry. The question often arises why Europe has not yet produced a company like SpaceX. He has “some ideas of how that can change,” said Aschbacher, who, along with Wörner, wants to work towards a “smooth transition.”
The Austrian outpointed his competitors from Spain and Norway in a hearing and was proposed as the sole 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. The fact that Aschbacher is an Austrian at the top of ESA is considered a minor sensation. “The head of ESA comes from a small country for the first time in 40 years,” emphasized Wolfgang Baumjohann, director of the Institute for Space Research in Graz (IWF) at the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), in a reaction.
Until now, the Director General of ESA has been provided mainly by large member states such as Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain. Austria currently only contributes about one percent (about € 51 million) to the part of ESA’s budget that comes from member states. This stake represents around 70 percent or € 4.87 billion of the total of € 6.7 billion in 2020.
At ESA it is in the nature of things that you have to reconcile the different points of view and interests of countries small and large or north and south, Aschbacher said. You have to make sure that solutions and compromises come to the table. “That’s exactly what I’ve done for most of my career,” said the designated general manager.
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. As of July 1, 2021, the ten addresses will report directly to Aschbacher.
The path to the top of the space agency, which has about 2,200 employees, was not necessarily mapped out, as the space scientist and administrator, born on July 7, 1962, was originally supposed to take over the mountain farm. of his parents in Ellmau as the eldest son of six children. Inspired by the 1969 moon landing as a child, he was able to attend high school and study through scholarship and part-time jobs. His fascination made him study meteorology and geophysics at the University of Innsbruck.
Aschbacher joined ESA after completing his dissertation in 1989. His first stop was the ESRIN in Frascati near Rome. After staying in 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. The father of three later returned to ESRIN in Italy, where he was responsible for planning and coordinating the program. In 2016, the author of more than 100 scientific publications became Director of Earth Observation at ESA.
The climate protection minister responsible for national space agendas, Leonore Gewessler (Greens), praised ESA’s designated head as an “excellent candidate for this position” due to his many years of experience. It was “a guarantee for good cooperation between ESA and the European Union,” said the minister, who will hold a press conference tomorrow Friday, together with Aschbacher in Vienna. The Austrian association of space industry and research institutions, Austrospace, also highlighted this aspect: “Under the leadership of Aschbacher, funding for the development of a new generation of Copernicus satellites was secured at the end of 2019, which among other things track the global distribution of CO2 emissions will be. ” FPÖ traffic spokesman Christian Hafenecker sees Austria’s position in European space policy as “further strengthened” by the appointment of Aschbacher.
