Erik Quistgaard (3 June 1921 – 11 February 2013) was a Danish engineer and Director General of the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

(ESA) from 1980 until 1984. As head of ESA, he oversaw early stages of the Ariane launcher's development, as well as

Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...

's earliest contributions to space science, notably its maiden launching, with the first ESA astronaut in space. With an MS (1945) in Mechanical Engineering from the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...

, Quistgaard's early career included working in the US as an engineer for

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

1948-1951, and at

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

in Sweden, where he held various production management functions between 1956 and 1972. Prior to joining ESA, Erik Quistgaard headed the Danish naval and maritime yard

Odense Steel Shipyard Odense Steel Shipyard ( da, Odense Staalskibsværft) was a Danish shipyard company located in Odense. It was best known for building container ships for its parent group, A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, including the Mærsk E class in 2006 whic ...

from 1972 to 1979. A European recipient (1984) of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Distinguished Public Service Medal, Erik Quistgaard was also among the founders of the

SES SES, S.E.S., Ses and similar variants can refere to: Business and economics * Socioeconomic status * Scottish Economic Society, a learned society in Scotland * SES, callsign of the TV station SES/RTS (Mount Gambier, South Australia) * SES S.A., ...

(Astra satellite) company in Luxembourg.SES Annual Report 1998
/ref>

References

European Space Agency personnel 1921 births 2013 deaths {{Denmark-engineer-stub