ESA inventors awarded

ESA Director General Jan Woerner joined the Agency’s Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality at a special award ceremony for ESA’s inventors.

The ceremony took place at ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands on 31 May, recognising inventors for their contributions during the past two years, leading to 13 patents.

“It is important to recognise the outstanding results of our ESA staff and contractors,” commented the Director General. “Through their creative work they help to maintain Europe’s competitiveness in the space industry.

“Furthermore, as ambassadors of their ideas, ESA’s inventors support the transfer of these patented technologies to completely new sectors, thereby demonstrating the benefit of space technology for society as a whole.”

In total, ESA’s patent portfolio consists of around 300 patented inventions and about 150 applications in progress, across a diverse variety of technical sectors. This portfolio is managed by the Agency’s Technology Transfer Programme Office, working to find terrestrial uses for advanced space technology.

Among the inventions awarded this time was a compression algorithm specially designed by David Evans to serve data housekeeping aboard satellites: it operates so rapidly that it can compress individual data packets as they are generated.