• 1954 – Graduated in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (Livorno Naval Academy, University of Pisa)
• 1954 – Started career as Engineer in the Italian Navy
• 1959-1960 – Postgraduate Studies at the Institute for Higher Studies in Telecommunications, Rome
• 1967-1971 – Joined ELDO in 1967 as Engineer in the Technical Coordination Department for the development of the second stage of EUROPA, became Deputy Director of the ELDO launch pad (1969) and Head of the Operations and Launch Pad Division (1971)
• 1973-1976  – Head of Operations for the Spacelab Study Group (1973), Deputy Spacelab Project Manager (1976)
• 1978 – Deputy Project Director for ESA at ESTEC
• 1980 – Hipparcos Project Manager at ESTEC
• 1986 – Became Head of the Columbus Programme Department for ESA
• 1993-1997 – ESA Director of Observation of the Earth and its Environment

Through the course of his career in ELDO, and subsequently within ESA, Emiliani gained experience of many of the Agency's activities, in particular in the field of management of large projects, including the Columbus Programme which was at the core of the European participation in the International Space Station. After official endorsement of collaboration with the US by the Rome Council meeting in 1985, negotiations on the draft US-European memorandum for Phase-B were conducted by Frederik Engström with the support of Emiliani and the final text was unanimously approved by the ESA Council on 24-25 April.

• 1965-1970 - ESRO fellow at the Culham Laboratory in England and Research Assistant at the Stockholm Observatory
• 1972-1985 - First President of the Swedish Space Corporation
• Board Member of the Kiruna Geophysical Institute and Chairman of the Board of the Satellite Image Corporation in Kiruna
• 1985 - ESA Director of Space Station and Platforms, directing Columbus project
• 1994-2001 - ESA Director of Launchers

It was under Engström’s tenure at the Swedish Space Corporation that it took over the operation of the launch facilities at ESRANGE in Kiruna, Sweden, until then operated by ESRO.

Engström had various contact with ESA prior to his appointment as Director of Space Station and Platforms in 1985: from 1977 to 1979 he was Chairman of ESA’s Remote Sensing Programme Board, and from 1979 to 1985 he was Swedish delegate to the Council. He was Director of Launchers from 1994 until his retirement in 2001.

See also: Interview with Fredrik Engström from the Oral History of Europe in Space Collection

• 1986 – PhD in Physics and a minor degree in human physiology.
• 1983-1987 – Research scientist with the University of Cologne 1987 – Joined the DLR German Aerospace Center, becoming the coordinator for spaceflight in DLR’s planning department
• 1990-1999 – German national astronaut
• 1999-2018 – Joined the ESA Astronaut Corps, becoming Head of the International Space Station Mission Integration and Operations Division (2005) and Advisor to the Head of the Director General’s Cabinet (2011–14)
• 2015-2018 – Professor for Astronautics and Space Stations at the Institute of Spaceflight System at University of Stuttgart on secondment from ESA

In 1990 Ewald joined the German national astronaut team. As backup astronaut for Mir ’92, launched 17 March 1992, he served as Crew Interface Coordinator at the Russian mission control centre. After the mission, he returned to Germany as the Deputy Head of DLR’s Astronaut Office and supported the Spacelab-D2 mission on the Space Shuttle mission STS-55, in 1993, before being appointed assistant to the Director of DLR’s Space Programme, with responsibility for extraterrestrial, spaceflight and microgravity programmes. In 1995 he returned to Star City, Russia, to train for the second German–Russian mission, Mir ’97, for which he was a research cosmonaut on the Russian Soyuz TM-25 spacecraft and spent 18 days on Mir.

In February 1999 he joined ESA’s European Astronaut Corps. He was the Crew Operations Manager for two Soyuz missions with ESA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2002 and as ESA’s Operations Manager in ESTEC, directed two nationally sponsored missions in 2003 and 2004.

In 2005 he was appointed Head of the International Space Station Mission Integration and Operations Division in the ESA Directorate of Operations and Infrastructure and in 2006, as ESA’s Operations Manager, he supervised preparation and flight operations for Astrolab, the first long-duration mission of an ESA astronaut (Thomas Reiter) on the International Space Station. Ewald then led the ESA operations management team during the STS-122/1E mission, which delivered Europe’s Columbus laboratory module to the Station in 2008. When Columbus operations began in 2008 and until 2011 he was ESA’s lead person at the Columbus Control Centre and oversaw the day-to-day Columbus operations handled by the group’s Mission Directors.

• 1979 – Graduated as an aeronautical engineer from the French Air Force Academy of Salon-de-Provence
• 1980-1988 – Qualified as a fighter pilot in Tours, France in 1980 and graduated from the L'École du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception French test pilot school in Istres in 1988
• 1979-1990 – pilot for French Air Force, promoted to Chief Test Pilot in 1990
• 1990 – Astronaut for the French space agency CNES
• 1998 – Joined the ESA Astronaut Corps, ESA Astronaut on Space Shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-123 in 2008

During his time in the French Air Force, Eyharts logged 3800 hours flying time on over 50 types of aircraft and held a commission as General.

In 1990, he was selected as an astronaut by France’s CNES space agency and assigned to the Hermes spacecraft programme in Toulouse. In 1994, he was assigned as backup crew for the French–Russian Cassiopée spaceflight, which took place in 1996, and was subsequently selected for the CNES mission Pegase and flew to Russia’s Mir space station from 29 January to 19 February 1998.

In August 1998, Eyharts joined ESA’s Astronaut Corps and was assigned to train at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA, where he became part of the 1998 Mission Specialist Class. He worked in the International Space Station Operations Branch as a section chief for Space Station systems, software and on-board information technology.

In 2004, Eyharts was assigned as the backup of astronaut Thomas Reiter for ESA's first long-duration mission to the International Space Station. His second spaceflight   was an almost two-month mission to the International Space Station to deliver Europe’s Columbus laboratory. He flew to the Station on Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-122 with ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel in February 2008 and returned to Earth with Space Shuttle STS-123 on 27 March.