On Friday 18 July, His Excellency Christian Stocker, Federal Chancellor of Austria, visited ESA Headquarters in Paris receiving a tour of the site from Director General Josef Aschbacher.
It was the Chancellor’s first visit to an ESA establishment following his swearing in earlier this year. Visiting the Astrolabe interpretive centre, Mr Stocker saw how Austria’s participation in ESA contributes to the goals of sustainable development and scientific excellence, and also heard how commercial space has undergone rapid development in Austria. He was accompanied by the Austrian ambassador to France, Barbara Kaudel-Jensen.
Austria became ESA’s 12th Member State when it ratified the ESA Convention in December 1986 and while always strongly committed to Earth observation and space applications, Austria has recently diversified its space interests, becoming more involved in launchers, navigation and human and robotic exploration. Austrian Carmen Possnig was selected as a member of ESA’s astronaut reserve in 2022 and will commence her second phase of training in the autumn. Carmen joined the visit and enthusiastically answered questions from the assembled Austrian media.
As part of Austria’s innovation community, the ESA PhiLab opened last year and has a current call for proposals open until 8 October. Just last month, Austria hosted the Living Planet Symposium, which brought together 6500 members of the Earth observation community to present scientific results and plan future activities. It was supported by a citywide ‘Space in the City’ festival in Vienna, organised by the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI) and Urban Innovation Vienna GmbH (UIV) and demonstrating the everyday connections between citizens and space.