The European Space Agency – 50 years journey through space, 10 years at the top!
public in-person lecture
Celebrations will be taking place across Europe in June as next month marks 50 years since the European Space Agency (ESA) was founded. Our legendary speaker worked at a high level at ESA for 14 years, the last ten years as Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
Professor David Southwood CBE – ESA Council Member: former Director of Science & Robotic Exploration at ESA and various NASA projects; Chair of UK Space Agency; Senior Research Investigator, Dept. of Physics, Imperial College London: Chair of Friends of Imperial College.
In the solar system, Professor Southwood oversaw the arrival of Cassini at Saturn and the successful landing of a probe (Huygens) on Titan as well as missions to the Moon, Mars and Venus.
He oversaw the launch of missions as varied as the major gamma ray astronomy mission, Integral, building two instruments for NASA’s JWST, the Herschel and Planck observatories as well as GAIA, the astronomical observatory that now has inspired a scientific publication rate faster than any previous ESA mission.
The talk will review some of the highs and lows of having the job “where the buck stops for European space science”.
The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is noted as being one of the most ambitious planetary exploration missions ever mounted. Huygens' touch-down on Titan is the farthest landing from Earth ever made!
A joint endeavour of ESA, NASA and ASI, the Italian space agency, Cassini-Huygens arrived at Saturn on 1 July 2004 and explored the ringed Saturnian system in detail over an initial four-year period.
ESA's Huygens probe was released from Cassini on 25 December 2004. Huygens continued on to Titan, Saturn's largest and most interesting moon, descending via parachute and touching down at 11:30 UTC, 14 January 2005.
So no pressure for Professor Southwood who was ESA mission lead!
This event is open to everyone, simply book places below.
We do not issue tickets, the email sent to you upon booking will act as your confirmation.
The location for this event is in lecture theatre LT201 on the first floor of the Skempton Building, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London, SW7 2BX. The building is located at B3 on the campus map here. The event will finish around 8.20pm and then refreshments will be available for Friends networking.
If you are a Member of Friends, one of the benefits of an annual Membership is a reduction in the price of lecture tickets, both for you and your guests. If you are not a Member and would like to take advantage of this, as well as enjoying the wide range of other benefits such as exclusive visits and FREE live streamed events, visit the 'Join Friends' page here.
