External Advisors

Prof. John M. Horack, Professor and Neil Armstrong Chair at the Ohio State University (USA) – his professional experience in aerospace innovation and leadership dates back to 1987 and includes honours such as the Exceptional Achievement Medal by NASA. He is also a leading science communicator.

Dr. Ken Davidian is the Director of Research at the Office of Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Washington, DC, USA. He will link ASCenSIon to the highly synergistic activities of the FAA Center of Excellence for commercial space Transportation and their new Commercial Space Innovation Initiative.

Prof. Robert van Zyl is the director of the Africa Space Innovation Centre and the French South African Institute of Technology at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a leading figure in Africa’s satellite programme and their application and will create valuable links to disseminate benefits to developing countries.  His team developed Africa's first nanosatellite in space, which was launched in 2013.

Dr. Michael Obersteiner has more than 30 years of experience in the aerospace industry, both for engineering and management positions. He has worked within several space transportation systems programs, incl. propulsion and operations, often moving between the sites in France and Germany. In addition, he is member and chair for Space Transportation Systems WG (Fachausschuss Raumtransportsysteme) at the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics (DGLR).

Jérôme Vila is founder and leader at ArianeWorks, an innovation platform involving a team of space players (CNES, ArianeGroup, Onera, APCO, ADF, SABCA, RUAG) which is tasked with boosting technological efforts on rocket reusability in Europe. Before that, Jerome spent over 20 years on Ariane design at different positions and roles, from system engineering to project management for “Ariane 5 ECA”, current workhorse of the Ariane family. Just before launching ArianeWorks he was head of rocket R&D at CNES, nurturing projects such as the France/Germany/Japan CALLISTO reusable testbed, the low cost/reusable rocket engine PROMETHEUS or the KASSAV Autonomous Launch Safety Kit.