Remembering Jacques Louet (1947-2020)
Former ESA engineer and project manager Jacques Louet passed away on 9 July 2020 at the age of 73 years, after a very long battle against illness.
Jacques was born in France on 7 January 1947. He graduated from the École Nationale de l’Aviation Civile, Toulouse, and joined ESA in 1976. He started his career at ESTEC in the System Engineering Department of the Technical Directorate.
He then moved to the Earth Observation Directorate where he occupied many key positions, including System Manager of the first European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS), which provided accurate long-term measurements of land, ocean and ice parameters, essential for environment and climate monitoring.
Jacques later became System Manager, and Programme Manager, of Envisat, the world’s largest civilian Earth observation satellite to date, which was launched in 2002. Envisat laid the foundations for the today’s Copernicus programme, a partnership between ESA and the European Union.
After Envisat was successfully commissioned and operational, Jacques joined the Science Directorate where he became Head of the Scientific Projects Department until he retired in July 2010.
Jacques was multi-talented. He was a keen sailor, a good skier and enjoyed playing the piano. Jacques was married to Christine, who passed away last November. They leave a son and a daughter and two grandchildren.
Jacques will be remembered by all his friends and colleagues for his energy, enthusiasm and dedication in his professional life and in all his personal activities.