Who is Josef Aschbacher, the Austrian who will lead the ESA (European Space Agency)
The Austrian Josef Aschbacher will become the new director general of ESA (supported by Germany and also by Italy) in place of Jan Wörner as director general of the European Space Agency. Here is Aschbacher's resume and reports
An Austrian will lead the European space agency (ESA) after Jan Wörner.
According to press reports, yesterday the heads of delegation of the ESA member states approved the official candidacy of Josef Aschbacher as the agency's new director general. The new general manager is expected to start his job in July 2021. Wörner's contract expires in June.
Since 2016, Austrian Aschbacher has been the head of ESRIN, the ESA center for earth observation in Frascati and is the director of ESA's earth observation programs.
The official ratification of the appointment of the new director general of ESA in place of the German Wörner is expected in mid-December.
Here are all the details on the next general manager, who beat the Spanish (Pedro Duque) and Norwegian (Christian Hauglie-Hanssen) candidates and before that the Italian candidates ( Simonetta Di Pippo and Roberto Battiston).
WHO IS AUSTRIAN JOSEF ASCHBACHER
Strongly supported by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Josef Aschbacher studied at the University of Innsbruck, graduating with a Masters and a Doctorate in Natural Sciences. As stated on the ESA website, Aschbacher has 35 years of professional experience in the field of Earth Observation. His professional career in the European Space Agency began in 1990. From 1994 to 2001 he worked at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC – Joint Research Center) in Ispra, Italy, with the role of Scientific Assistant to the Director of the Institute of Space Applications.
He rejoined ESA in 2001, at the Paris office, and in 2014 was promoted to his current position where he is responsible for planning ESA's Earth Observation programs and for the formulation and implementation of the programmatic and strategic decisions of the Directorate. At the same time he is head of the Esrin research institute in Frascati near Rome.
WHO BEATS SIMONETTA DI PIPPO
At the beginning of September, the ESA Committee had started to work, identifying eight candidates, who thus passed the first selection. In the group there were still both Italians, plus a French, a Belgian, a Spanish, a British, a Norwegian and an Austrian.
Nothing, however, for the two Italian candidates: neither for that of Simonetta Di Pippo, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), presented with the support of Palazzo Chigi, nor for that of the physicist Roberto Battiston, former president of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and professor at the University of Trento, who had presented his candidacy independently by the deadline of the end of August.
It was a severe blow to our country. Italy, with an ever higher contribution to the ESA budget of the order of two billion and two hundred million, is behind only Germany and France as a contributor to the agency.
WITH THE SUPPORT OF ITALIANS
The last selection, which ended yesterday, saw candidates from Norway, Spain and Austria in the running. Aschbacher therefore defeated both the Spanish Pedro Duque, astronaut and current minister of science in the Madrid government, and Christian Hauglie-Hanssen, current head of the Norwegian space agency.
In yesterday's meeting, the heads of delegation voted with a large majority for the Austrian Josef Aschbacher (18 votes out of 21), strongly supported also by Germany. The head of the Italian delegation Antonio Bernardini, ambassador to the OECD, also voted for the Austrian.
As pointed out in Start Magazine in recent days by Professor Ezio Bussoletti, former Asi vice president, at the meeting "Italy, once again, also considering the caliber and professionalism of the character, will be represented by our Ambassador to the OECD, unlike the other countries that usually deploy the presidents of their space agencies".
A NEUTRAL SOLUTION?
As the German website Futurezone notes, “Aschbacher is said to have prevailed over the competition mainly thanks to his good political network, his professional competence and his charismatic aspect. In the end, the Austrian should have appeared as a kind of “neutral solution. It has positioned itself as a reasonable alternative among the candidates for the main members of the ESA ”.
THE ITALIAN SPACE FUTURE WITH ESA LEADING ASCHBACHER
But for the prof. Bussoletti, "the future, unfortunately, is black: for four years there will be a non-Italian DG and, if the chosen one was around 60 years old or less, nothing would prevent him from being renewed in the mandate, at least for a further two years so a new possibility for our country will not present itself before 2027 or, if it were renewed for four years, it will even reach 2029 ”.
"This if we return to the unwritten historical agreement for which the position of GM was by right only of the major contributing countries: for the 2021 budget, France (24.5%), Germany (22.2%) and Italy ( 13.5%) support ESA at 60.2% of the costs ”, highlighted Bussoletti.
WHAT REMAINS FOR ITALY?
According to the German site, “Italy should be particularly satisfied with Aschbacher's appointment as ESA's General Manager. The existence of the Esrin Institute in Frascati is at stake. With the Austrian's rise to ESA, continuation now seems more likely. Furthermore, the leadership of the European Space Research Institute could now fall into the hands of the Italians ”.
In fact, the Directorate for Earth Observations that Aschbacher held will be released. "In this case it should not be difficult, the conditional is a must given what has happened so far, to demand the position for Italy given the considerable economic contribution made in the last ministerial in Seville, 2.2 billion euros ”, Underlined Bussoletti.
"In the event that the Directorate is actually attributed to our country, a potentially reasonable situation but still not certain a priori since any European expert will be able to participate in the selection and recent history has shown what can happen, the problem of choosing the Italian candidate arises. , which must be “unique”, to be presented and supported adequately ”, concluded the former vice president of ASI.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/chi-e-josef-aschbacher-laustriaco-che-guidera-esa/ on Wed, 25 Nov 2020 11:32:33 +0000.