• Educated at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris (1956), Ecole d’Application in Saumur (1958), Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Armement at Arcueil (1959-1961)
• 1961-1964 – Military engineer at Arcueil and Colomb-Bechar
• 1964-1967 – Chief Engineer at Norbert Beyrard
• 1967-1973 – Head of Department, Deputy Director and Director (1971-1973) of the CNES Guiana Space Centre
• 1971 – INSEAD Advanced Management Program at Stanford University (USA)
• 1973-1975 – French Chief Executive of the Franco-German Symphonie satellite programme
• 1975-1978 – ESA’s Director of Spacelab
• 1979-1985 – Director General of Satel Conseil
• 1985-1990 – Director of the Hermes Programme at Aerospatiale
• 1991-1999 – Deputy Director General of Alcatel Espace (1991-1999); Consulting Engineer in Space Systems (1999)

See also: Interview with Bernard Deloffre from the Oral History of Europe in Space Collection

• French astronomer and pioneer of radio astronomy
• 1954-1968 - Astronomer and then Director of the Paris Observatory
• 1967 -1973 - President of CNES
• 1968-1971 - Director of the National Institute for Astronomy and Geophysics, now National Institute of Sciences of the Universe (INSU)
• 1976-1981 - Head of Research at the Ministry of Universities
• 1970s - Committee member or consultant for many other scientific organisations, including President of the Committee for Space Research (COSPAR) from 1978 to 1982

Denisse was President of CNES during the period of the first generation of ESRO satellites, the TD and ESRO series. Under his tenure, France also undertook the Symphonie telecommunications satellite project in collaboration with Germany and was involved in the set-up of Meteosat and the formation of ESA.

• 1948 - Doctorate in law from Brussels University
• 1950-1988 – served in the Belgian diplomatic service: Belgian embassy in Washington (1952-55); in Brussels as Assistant to the Belgian Commissioner for Atomic Energy; Secretary to the Belgian embassy in Moscow (1957-1960); Director of the Scientific Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (early 1960s); Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels (1971-1974); Minister and Deputy Head of Mission in the Belgian Embassy in Rome (1974-1976); Ambassador to Singapore (1976-1979); Ambassador to Japan (1985-1988); Permanent Representative to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (1984-1985)  
• 1960 – Member of the Belgian Delegation which signed the Meyrin Agreement, establishing COPERS
• 1967-1971 - ESRO Director of Administration  
• 1988 - On retiring from the diplomatic service, served in various representative, advisory and consultant capacities

As Director of the Scientific Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Depasse headed the Belgian delegation to the ESRO and ELDO negotiations.  From 1962 to 1966 he was closely associated with ELDO as the head of the Executive Secretariat of the ELDO Preparatory Committee, and once it was formally established, became its Director of Administration.  
He played an important role in Belgium becoming party to the ELDO and ESRO Conventions and in Belgian industrial and scientific cooperation with them. Within ELDO he was at the heart of establishing the Secretariat structure, recruitment of staff, development of personnel, finance, contracts and regulations. Within ESRO he ensured the smooth transition between the Auger and Bondi directorships, when the redefinition of the scientific programme, review of its operations (the Bannier enquiry and report) and financial difficulties had created doubts about its ability to survive.

• 1950s-60s – Studied at the universities of Berkeley and Columbia in New York Degree in Maritime and Aeronautical Engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique
• 1954-1960 – Chief Engineer in the Naval Engineers of the French Navy in Toulon
• 1960-1962 - Ecole Polytechnique, Assistant to Director of Studies.
• 1962-1964 - Director of the Bretigny Technical Establishment for CNES
• 1964-1967 - Assistant to the Director General, then Technical and Administrative Inspector, CNES
• 1967 –1974 - ESRO Director of Programmes and Planning
• 1974-1972 – Deputy Director (1974-1979) and Director-General of the European Joint Research Centre (1982)

• 1986 – Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronáuticos at the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid
• 1986-1992 - joined the Grupo Mecánica del Vuelo and worked at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt
• 1992 – Joined the ESA Astronaut Corps, ESA Astronaut on two missions from 1998 to 2003
•  2006-2011 – Leave from ESA to lead Deimos Imaging as Managing Director and Executive President
•  2018-2021 – Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities for the Spanish Government
•  2018-2019 – Chairman of the ESA Intermediate Ministerial Meeting (IMM18) at ESAC (25 October 2018); Chairman of the 280th ESA Council and Co-Chairman of the ninth EU/ESA Space Council in Brussels (28 May 2019)
• 2022 – Joined the Board of the European aerospace company Destinus

Until 1992, Duque’s work at ESOC involved developing models for orbit determination and algorithms, and implementing orbit computation software. He was also part of the Flight Control Team for ESA’s ERS-1 satellite and Eureca, the European Retrievable Carrier. In 1992, he was selected to join ESA’s Astronaut Corps, completing the basic training at EAC and the Russian Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City. He returned to Star City in 1993 to train for the ESA–Russian EuroMir-94 mission, during which he was the prime Crew Interface Coordinator in the Russian Mission Control Centre in Moscow.

In 1995, NASA selected him as an Alternate Payload Specialist for the STS-78 Space Shuttle Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission that flew in June 1996. During the mission, he was one of the two Crew Interface Coordinators. He subsequently flew as Mission Specialist on STS-95 in 1998 (dedicated to research in weightlessness and the study of the Sun) and in 2003 on the Cervantes mission on the ISS (as Flight Engineer on Soyuz-TMA as part of Expedition 8 and landing back on Earth as part of Expedition 7).

Among other responsibilities for ESA, he supported the Module Projects Division in the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity and worked on Europe’s Columbus laboratory and the Cupola module on the International Space Station as crew support. From 2011 he headed the Flight Operations Office and from 2015, was responsible for the control and review of future ESA projects within the Astronaut Corps.

• 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.

• 1968 – Various positions in the MAN Group in Germany, one of Europe's largest mechanical engineering companies. Began as Design Engineer and eventually became Senior Vice President and General Manager.
• 1986-1994 – ESA Director of Space Transportation Systems
• 1994-2004 – ESA Director of Manned Space and Microgravity
• 2005-2007 – ESA Director of Reforms
• 2007 – Consultant to various national and international research organisations

During his 19 years at the MAN groups Feustel-Büechl was involved in Ariane development since the beginning of the programme in 1973. He made essential contributions to the development and production of the Ariane launcher system and supported the foundation of Arianespace, of which he was a board member. He joined ESA in November 1986 as Director of Space Transportation Systems, responsible for the Ariane programmes and for ESA activities concerning human spaceflight. From 1994 as Director for Manned Space and Microgravity he held responsibility for all ESA activities relating to European astronauts, the International Space Station, and microgravity research and application programmes. In 2004 he moved to ESA HQ in Paris to assist the Director General as Director of Reforms until 2007, introducing inter-directorate changes to reinforce the role and efficiency of the Agency.

See also: Interview with Jörg Feustel-Büechl from the Oral History of Europe in Space Collection