Michel Courtois
Director of TEC

Born in France in Argenteuil in the Val d’Oise, Michel Courtois studied aeronautics engineering. In 1966 he graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and in 1971 from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ENSAE). On completing his studies he joined the French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Among his duties he took part in negotiations with ESA and became an advocate of the European extension of the French Earth observation programme.

This led to the start of a project at national level in 1977, based on the Spot heliosynchronous satellite, launched in 1986 by an Ariane-1 launcher that at the time, was still in the development phase. In 1978 he was put in charge of the Spot 1 satellite and system, and in 1984 he was made Director of the Earth Observation and Reconnaissance Satellite Division, and head of the Spot-1 project, up to launch and operational orbit acceptance.

His next post at CNES began in 1986 when he was made Vice-Director in charge of project activities and development studies for CNES application programmes. These included: Earth observation (Spot 2 to 4, Helios, polar platform and radar observation preliminary project); telecommunications (Telecom 1C and Telecom 2); direct television (TDF-1 and 2); navigation systems (Locstar, Argos, Sarsat-Cospas, European addition to the GPS); and the Silex laser inter-satellite link system. The joint CNES/CNRS laboratory called LERTS also came under his leadership.

In April 1989 Michel Courtois was appointed Director of the Hermes Programme and of manned spaceflight at CNES. One year later he was appointed Director of the Hermes Programme at ESA, as the Agency decided to set up a joint team with CNES, located in Toulouse. His next post was in 1993 when he became Director of the Toulouse Space Centre.

Michel Courtois’s last appointment at CNES was Deputy Director General. In this role he co-presided the Ariane 502 qualification commission after the failure of the first Ariane-5 flight and then took over responsibility for launcher activity at CNES.

After 28 year’s service with CNES, in 1999 Michel Courtois left to take a job in industry when he became Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Alcatel Space. He remained with Alcatel until he began his appointment with ESA in May 2004.

Michel Courtois has been a member of a number of Boards of Directors including the Intespace company, Collecte Localisation Satellite (CLS), Spot Image SA and its Washington subsidiary Spot Image Corporation, and Arianespace. He is also a founding member of the Académie des Technologies.

He has received numerous awards for his contribution to space activities. These include: three awards from the Association Aéronautique et Astronautique de France (AAAF) in 1976, together with the AAAF Prix des Jeunes; the Grand Prix de l’Académie Nationale de l’Air et de l’Espace (ANAE) in 1987; Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 1991; the Prix de la Réussite awarded to the Spot 1 team in 1998; and, the Prix 1998 d’Astronautique. In 2000 Michel Courtois was made an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur.

ESA’s Director of Technical and Quality Management is strongly committed to a European space programme and believes, "That there can be no ambitious space programme in Europe today unless it is European."

When asked about his role as head of the ESTEC establishment Michel Courtois said, "We need to optimise procedures and set up a really efficient management to enhance effectiveness and competitiveness. This requires a measure of drastic reappraisal, careful choice of priorities and working together. The objective is to have project and technology developments better harmonised without increasing costs and delays."