Passing of the baton noticed at the head of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Austrian geophysicist Josef Aschbacher, 58, was appointed yesterday by the 22 member states of the ESA council to take over from the German Jan Woerner at the end of his term on June 30, 2021. "
For the first time in forty years, the Director General of ESA comes from a “small” country,
”notes his compatriot Wolfgang Baumjohann, astrophysicist and director of the Graz University of Technology.
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This had not happened since 1980, when a Dane had piloted ESA for four years.
Most of the time, personalities from “big” countries - France and Germany in particular - have held this post.
Another notable fact is that the council chose the current director of ESA's Earth observation programs, and the father of its flagship program Copernicus.
The ESA Council sends a strong signal by recalling that the observation of the planet is crucial in the fight against the
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