• Master’s degree in economics from the Stockholm School of Economics
• 1970s-1990s – Worked for more than 25 years with the Swedish Ministry of Industry 
• 1998-2009 – Director General of the Swedish National Space Board and Head of the Swedish delegation to ESA (1999-2002)
• 2002-2005 and 2007-2008 – Chairman of the ESA Council
• 2005-2007 – Vice-Chairman of the ESA Council

Tegnér brought his vast experience of government to the Agency when became an ESA Council delegate in June 1998, first leading the Swedish delegation, and then serving as ESA Council Chair from July 2002 to June 2005. He later served as Vice-chair for two more years before returning as acting Council Chair from 2007 to 2008.

The first Space Council, bringing together representatives of the European Union and ESA Member States, met during his chairship in November 2004 in Brussels, testimony to his contribution to ESA’s relationship with the European Union. 

• 1976-1982 – studied physics at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, and at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg
• 1985 – Doctorate at the Institute for Environmental Physics of Heidelberg Universität
• 1986-1987 – postdoctoral research at Princeton University
• 1988 – National astronaut for German Aerospace Center DLR
• 1998-2005 – Joined the ESA Astronaut Corps, ESA Astronaut on the STS-99 Shuttle mission in 2000
• 2005-2010 – Head of the Astronaut Division of EAC 
• 2010-2013  – Resident Fellow with the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna, Austria
• 2013-2016 – Returned to ESA and headed the Strategic Planning and Outreach Office in the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Operations.
• 2016 – left ESA to take up a teaching position at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen

In 1988, Thiele began basic astronaut training at the DLR and in 1990 was assigned to the German D-2 Spacelab Mission. During the mission in 1993, Thiele served as alternate payload specialist in the Payload Operations Control Center of DLR at Oberpfaffenhofen.

In 1994, he served with the Strategic Planning Group for the Program Director of DLR and in 1995, he was assigned to head the Crew Training Center (CTC) at DLR in Cologne. From 1996 to 1998 he attended NASA's mission specialist class ’96 at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas.

In August 1998, he joined the European Astronaut Corps, where he took part as mission specialist in the STS-99 Mission in February 2000. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was dedicated to the first, three-dimensional, digital mapping of the Earth surface on a nearly global scale. 

Following this, Thiele was assigned by NASA for collateral duties as a CapCOM, the interface in charge of communications, between the Control Center and the Space Shuttle crew. From August 2001, Thiele served as Head of the ESA astronauts and Operations Unit at EAC in Cologne and from August 2002 until April 2003 he became acting Head of the Astronaut Division.

In January 2003, Thiele was assigned as backup of André Kuipers for the Soyuz 8S mission and trained at Yuri A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre GCTC (Star City) near Moscow from May 2003 to May 2004.
 

• 1930s? – Degree in Law from the University of Paris and graduated from Sciences Po
• 1935 – began his career as a diplomat; attache at the French embassy in Los Angeles, USA, from 1938–1939
• 1941 onwards – joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, subsequent diplomatic posts to Denmark, Morocco, the UK and the United Nations (as Deputy Permanent Representative)
• 1969-1973 – French Ambassador to Portugal
• 1975-1979 – Permanent Representative of France to NATO Council
• 1978 – Given the honorary title of Ambassador of France

• 1950s - PhDs in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome
• 1959-1964 - Polytechnic Institute of New York, and the GASL (General Applied Sciences Laboratory), Westbury, New York
• 1964-1969 - Head of Research at the Centro delle Ricerche Aerospaziali
• 1969-1974 - Director of Space Activities of the CNR (Italian Research Council) and consultant for the Ministero della Ricerca Scientifica
• 1975-1998 – Various positions in ESA

During Trella’s time at the CNR in Rome, he was responsible for the Italian participation in ELDO and ESRO as an Italian delegate. In 1973 he was elected one of the Vice-Chairmen of ESRO and Chairman of the Spacelab Programme Board. On ESA’s creation he became Technical Inspector, Paris, in 1975, and in 1978 was appointed Technical Director of ESA, Paris, and Director of the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, Holland. He was ESA’s Inspector General from 1984 to 1998.

• 1946-1952 - Studies in physics at the Berlin Technical University and Freiburg-im-Bresnau University
• 1955 - Research Physicist at Westinghouse Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh, USA
• 1958-1964 - Balzers AG, establishing the ultra-high vacuum programme and, from 1962, Head of the Physics Laboratory
• 1964 - Director of ESRO-ESLAB, ESA Director of Scientific Programmes from 1975-1983

In 1964 Trendelenburg was appointed Director of ESRO’s European Space Research Laboratory (ESLAB), base for the project scientists liaising between national groups flying experiments on the organisation’s satellites and sounding rockets, and the engineering groups at ESTEC. He was appointed the first ESA Director of Scientific Programmes by the ESA Council in 1975 and held this post until his retirement in 1983. In this role he forged links with space scientists in many countries, including the Soviet Union and put Giotto into the ESA programme when NASA pulled out of a proposed joint mission.