• 1957 – Graduated in Physics from Pembroke College, Oxford
• 1960s – Worked for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment
• 1967 – joined the Meteorological Office as Head of the new Cloud Physics Branch, becoming Deputy Director in 1976 and Director in 1982
• 1979-1983 – President of the Commission for Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics
• 1980-1982 – President of the Royal Meteorological Society
• 1985-1993 – ESA Director of the Earth Observation and Microgravity Programme

In his work for the Meteorological Office Goldsmith was responsible for research into physical meteorology, including the Office’s involvement in the Meteosat and ERS programmes. He was nominated ESA’s Director of Earth Observation and Microgravity Programme in 1985.

• 1966 - MA in Law from the University of Copenhagen. Began career in the Danish Ministry of Education and Research; Head of Section, Ministry of Education (1966-1972), Head of Section for International Relations, Danish Research Administration (1972-1984), Head of Division for International Relations, Ministry of Research (1984-2000), Head of Division for International Relations, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (2000)
• Represented Denmark in its involvement with European research organisations including CERN, COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), Eureka, and EU space activities
• 1970s-80s - Chairman of various ESA committees and delegate bodies
• 1987-1990 - Chairman of the ESA Council
• 1981-1984, 1990-1993 and 1999-2002 – Vice Chairman of the ESA Council
• 1996-1999 - Chairman of the European Southern Observatory Council

During the period from 1978 to 1987 Grage was Chairman of many ESA committees and working groups including the International Relations Advisory Committee (1978-1981) and the Industrial Policy Committee (1984-1987). He became Chairman of ESA Council in 1987 and was Vice Chairman or Chairman of several Council Working Groups, including the Elaboration of the Joint European Strategy for Space, the ESA-EU/EC Relationship, and the 2003 Council at Ministerial Level. He was delegate to ESRO Council and subsequently ESA Council from 1975 to 2008, making him the Agency’s longest serving delegate.

See also: Interview with Henrik Grage from the Oral History of Europe in Space Collection

• 1950-1954 - Research Engineer at Research Institute for National Defence, Stockholm
• 1954-1957 - Engineer at Jungnerbolaget, Stockholm-Laboraterie
• 1957-1971 - worked for SAAB as Chief Engineer – Management of Electronic Systems Laboratory, in Linköping and Gothenburg, including all SAAB activity in space technology. Local Executive of SAAB Gothenburg
• 1971-1975 - Director of ESTEC
• 1975-1989 - Group President of Teleplan, Solna, Sweden, responsible for telecommunications and data processing systems
• Member or Chairman of the Board of various Swedish companies

From 1971 to 1975 Ove Hammerström worked for ESRO and served as the Director of ESTEC, ESRO’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk.

• 1936 - Doctorate in law from the University of Luxembourg
• 1958 - Elected to the Belgian Parliament and to the Senate in 1965. Minister of the Middle Classes (1968-1972), of French Culture (1972-1973), of the Interior (1974) and of Science Policy (1973-1974)
• 1979 - President of the Christian Democratic Group at the Council of Europe

It was as Belgian Minister of Science Policy that Hanin chaired the sixth European Space Conference, in Brussels in July 1973, which agreed on the second Package Deal, paving the way for the creation of the European Space Agency.

See also: Interview with Charles Hanin from the Oral History of Europe in Space Collection

• Graduated in Engineering from Birmingham University
• 1947-1975 – Joined the UK Scientific Civil Service, after various HQ and establishment roles, worked for the British Government Communications Bureau from 1957, becoming its Head of Research and Development in 1970
• 1975 – Head of ESA’s Department of Development and Technology

Hawkes joined ESA on 1 April 1975 as Head of the Department of Development and Technology at ESTEC. From March to July 1978 he was also Acting Director of ESTEC during the hiatus between Johan Berghuis and Massimo Trella.

• 1949 – Emigrated to the USA and became a US citizen (Austrian by birth)
• 1958 – Bachelor's degree in Mathematics at the University of Texas in Austin
• 1949-1959 – Served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserve
• 1959-1983 – Worked in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including as Launch Systems Engineer on the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter Programmes (1959-1965) and in senior technical positions from 1969 to 1983.
• 1983-1993 – ESA’s Director of Operations and subsequently Special Advisor to the DG

Prior to joining ESA, Heftman had spent most of his professional life at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena where he worked extensively on spacecraft mission support and operations and the development of control-centre data systems, sustaining operations at the Goldstone (USA), Canberra (Australia) and Madrid (Spain) tracking complexes. He succeeded Dr Reinhold Steiner as ESA Director of Operations in November 1983, a position with responsibility for the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) which he held until July 1991, covering the period of the Giotto Mission. Heftman was the fifth Director at ESOC and the first from Austria. He was then Special Advisor to the Director General until May 1993. He made a significant contribution to ESA's series of highly successful deep space orbital missions from 1983 to 1993.

• 1949 - Deputy to the General Secretary of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
• 1952-1961 - German delegate to CERN, Chairman of its Finance Committee from 1959-1961
• 1956-1961 - Ministerialrat and Ministerialdirigent responsible for research, training and scientific exchanges at the Federal Ministry for Atomic Energy
• 1961-1969 - Member of the Directorate of the Nuclear Research Centre (Kernforschungsanlage), Jülich
• 1961-1964 - Chairman of the Legal, Administrative and Financial Working Group of COPERS
• 1964 - Member of the German Commission for Space Research
• 1964-1974 - Vice Chairman, then Chairman of ESRO Council (1965-1967), then Director General of ESRO (1971-1974)

A Doctorate in law from the University of Leipzig, Hocker was Chairman of the Legal, Administrative and Financial Working Group of COPERS from 1961 to 1964. On its creation in 1964, he became Vice-chairman of ESRO’s first Council for a year, and Chairman from 1965 to 1967. He was ESRO’s third Director-General from February 1971 to June 1974. As DG, he guided ESRO through important events including the adoption of the first Package Deal reorienting its activities in 1971, the revision of the ESRO Convention (ultimately becoming the ESA Convention in 1975) and the European Space Conferences of 1972 and 1973 which approved the Ariane, Spacelab and Marots programmes and led to the merger of ESRO and ELDO to create ESA.

• Belgian engineer
• 1964-1967 – Various positions in COPERS and ESRO including as Engineer for Technical Installations and Facilities and Director of Sounding Rocket Projects

• 1956 - Doctorate in physics from the University of Stockholm
• 1957-1994 - First Director of the Kiruna Geophysical Observatory (become the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in 1987)
• 1967 - Chairman of the Swedish Space Research Committee and its successor, the Space Science Committee
• 1962-2000 - Chairman or member of various COPERS/ESRO/ESA committees: Chairman of COPERS Scientific Working Group on the Ionosphere and Aurora (1962-64), ESRO Working Group on the Ionosphere and Aurora (1964-67) and ESA Space Science Advisory Committee (1998-2000); member of ESRO Launching Programmes Advisory Committee of (1968-72), ESRO Council (1964-72), ESRO Scientific and Technical Committee (1964-72), ESA Science Programme Committee (1972-1998)
• 1988 - Member of the Space Science Committee of the European Science Foundation
• 1994 - After retirement, Director of the newly-formed International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland, and Secretary General of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy

Hultqvist’s proposal of Kiruna as a base for a sounding rocket range led to him becoming Head of one of four sub-sections of COPERS’ Scientific and Technical Working Group, which resulted in the Blue Book programme for ESRO. (ESRANGE, ESRO's rocket launching site at Kiruna, was inaugurated in 1966). In the early years of ESRO, he represented Sweden on the Council and on its Scientific and Technical Committee. He was a member of many other ESRO and ESA committees, participated as an investigator in several ESRO satellites and many sounding rocket experiments.

• Studied physics at the Techncial University, University of Munich and the University of California, Berkeley: Diploma in Physics from the Technical University of Munich (1947), PhD awarded in 1951.
• 1950s – Various positions at the Technical Universities of Munich and Research Assistantship at the Institute of Technology Aachan
• 1958-1978 – Director of the Institute of Plasma Physics of Nuclear Research Establishment (Kernforschungsanlage) in Julich
• 1966-1969 – Obtained leave of absence to become Director of ESRIN, Frascati
• 1973-1987 - Chairman of the DFVLR, the German aerospace research and test establishment

Jordan was the first director of ESRIN, ESRO’s European Space Research Institute. ESRIN consisted of a group of experts in specialised fields of theoretical and experimental physics, chemistry and plasma physics, engaged in original research and concentrated on experiments to study physical and chemical phenomena in space.