'Celebrating the beginnings of ESTEC' - Guest contribution

By Pieter van Beekhuizen

This year ESA is celebrating its 50th anniversary and special events are organised in every establishment. Each establishment will focus on the role it has played throughout these exciting five decades, during which so many top class projects have been developed.  

On 14 April, in the presence of many guests and dignitaries, ESA celebrated this anniversary at ESTEC.

The event started with a lively performance of a Dutch brass band 'Kleintje Pils' which immediately put the celebration event in focus.

Dietmar Pilz as Head of Establishment and Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality welcomed the guests and gave an overview of the main ESA highlights and the important role assured by the ESTEC establishment in all the programmes and activities undertaken.  

A panel discussion took place with the Director of the Netherlands Space Office (Mr Harm van de Wetering), the regional Minister for Economy and Innovation (Mr Meinert Stolk) and Dietmar Pilz.

During his introduction Dietmar Pilz mentioned that he was the 10th Director / Head of Establishment of ESTEC and referred to the inauguration speech made by the first Director of ESTEC Professor Werner J. Kleen on 3 April 1968  in the presence of HRH Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands.

This visionary speech of 1968 emphasising the importance of international collaboration is still highly - and even more - relevant today. The speech made at the time when ESRO was solely dedicated to developing scientific satellites already envisaged the huge potential of space technology for application projects. This vision became reality with the creation of ESA in May 1975.

Readers interested in the history of ESTEC will be very proud looking back on all the achievements of ESTEC ever since this speech was given in 1968  and will greatly admire the insightful views expressed by Prof. Kleen in these early days.

I wish you very nice 50th anniversary celebrations at the other sites!

Pieter van Beekhuizen started at ESA ESTEC in 1972 and retired from ESA HQ in 2017. During these years he had a large number of different staff and line management positions within the agency. After his retirement he remains very much involved in space-related activities and consultancy tasks.