Orbit reimagined: pushing the limits of very-low orbital flight.

• Dr. Mark Drinkwater led ESA’s Earth and Mission Science Division from 2007 to 2025, overseeing Earth Explorer mission selection and helping shape the design, development, and operation of the missions in the Earth Explorer and Copernicus Sentinel programmes. • Before this, he served as Project Scientist for several major missions, most notably GOCE —one of only two missions ever flown in VLEO. Operating at the edge of space, GOCE transformed our understanding of Earth’s gravity field, ocean circulation, and internal structure. • Earlier in his career, after earning a PhD at the University of Cambridge, he joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

• Dr. Paolo Ferri is one of Europe’s most accomplished space operations leaders. As the former Head of ESA Mission Operations, he oversaw operations across ESA’s unmanned missions, helping guide some of the agency’s most ambitious programmes. • Best known as Flight Director of Rosetta, Dr. Ferri also held senior roles on landmark missions including Mars Express, Venus Express, BepiColombo, and the GOCE VLEO mission. • His work in space mission operations was recognised with SpaceOps’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023 and by his induction into the International Astronautical Federation Hall of Fame in 2015.

• Dr. Dan M. Goebel is a Fellow and Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA. He earned degrees in physics, electrical engineering, and applied plasma physics from UCLA. At JPL, he serves as Chief Engineer of the Psyche Mission and leads development of advanced electric propulsion and other spacecraft technologies. • Dr. Goebel is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, AIAA, IEEE, and APS. He has authored more than 350 journal and conference papers, co-written two textbooks on electric propulsion, and holds 60 patents.

• Alan spent 23 years at the European Space Agency as a Senior Power Electronics Engineer, helping to shape modern spacecraft electrical power system architectures. • He is widely recognised for pioneering contributions including the Sequential Switching Shunt Regulator for solar-array regulation, advances in conductance- control voltage regulation, and the “Weinberg converter,” deployed in e.g. the International Space Station and still used in today’s satellite systems. • Later, as a consultant, he led the electrical power system design for two satellite projects: GIOVE-A, a prototype European navigation satellite, and the ESail Satellite, a prototype maritime communications satellite.