Back on earth
David
Henri
Chief Executive Officer Cofounder
David started Exotrail project when he was studying at Ecole polytechnique. David holds an engineering and corporate strategy degree from Ecole polytechnique, the leading university for science in France. He completed his education with a Master Degree from the University of Cambridge in Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management. David has an experience in the French Air Force and has been working at Swiss Space Systems, a New Space start-up which designed a suborbital launcher for small satellites. He had an engineer role in the Propulsion department. He then worked in a Corporate Venture Capital (ENGIE New Ventures). David is President & CEO of Exotrail and leads Exotrail’s vision and global execution.
Nicolas
Heitz
Chief Operating Officer Cofounder
Nicolas holds an Aerospace Master in Science Degree from ISAE-ENSMA, a Business Degree from ESSEC & Centrale Paris and a Financial Certificate from HEC Paris. Nicolas acquired a highly valuable experience in management during his 6-year job at ALTRAN, managing critical projects and large teams, then reorganization projects, as a Presales manager. Passionate with entrepreneurship, he cofounded, structured and developed his first start-up, Adionics as VP Finance & Administration. After 5+ years, more than 5M€ of fundings and a lot of successes, he decided to join Exotrail project and is now one of the 4 cofounders. Nicolas brings his entrepreneurship experience and his skills in finance, administration and operations as COO of Exotrail.
Jean-Luc
Maria
Chief Technology Officer Cofounder
Jean-Luc is an aerospace engineer (he holds an aerospace engineering degree from ISAE-SupAero) and has been a space project manager for 16 years at CNRS (French National Research Centre). He has a system engineering background, and became technical project manager on solar system exploration missions (Venus Express, ExoMars, BepiColombo …). He has been involved at various stages of a space payload development, from call biding to realization, testing and delivery. He has then been responsible of an AIT (Assembly, Integration & Tests) platform for space hardware integration and qualification. Thanks to these experiences, he has a wide and comprehensive knowledge of the space hardware development cycle, together with an extensive network in the space industry worldwide. Jean-Luc is our Chief Technical Officer and leads the overall product development of ExoMG®-Nano and ExoMG®-Micro.
Paul
Lascombes
Chief Scientific Officer Cofounder
Paul holds an engineering degree from Ecole polytechnique and an aerospace
engineering degree from ISAE-Supaero in Toulouse. He started Exotrail during
his study at Polytechnique with David. Paul is an aerospace enthusiast and a
licensed pilot. He has a strong aerospace experience that he acquired during
various internships at Caltech (California), Swiss Space Systems and more
recently at Airbus Defence & Space in the Advanced Systems team.
Paul has the role of Mission Manager and R&D director at Exotrail. He is
specifically responsible of all the space mechanics and manoeuvres aspects
of Exotrail.
Bastien
Duong
Systems
Engineer
Bastien graduated with an international double master degree in 'Industrial Automation' at the University of Brescia (Brescia, Italy) and 'Mechatronic Systems for Rehabilitation' at the University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris, France). He specialized in the space sector with the 'Space-based Systems Engineering' master degree at the Observatory of Paris (Meudon, France). Throughout semesters abroad in Brescia (Italy), Toronto (Canada) and more recently at the French Space Agency (CNES Toulouse), he developed capability of meeting specifications and needs of a project and ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team. He joined Exotrail first as a SATT Paris-Saclay Technology maturation engineer in 2017 and then in Exotrail team since July 2018.
Julien
Hamon
AIT
Engineer
Julien is an AIT engineer with 3 years of experience in the space sector. He holds a master's degree in Space-based Engineering Systems from the Observatory of Paris and Paris-Sud University. His background in building acoustics and his various experiences at IAS (Institut d'Astrophysique Saptiale) and PIT (Plateforme d'Integrations et Tests) as a space test engineer gave him strong skills in test environment. He has worked on different Cubesats (PicSat, X-cubesat ...) and European mission instruments such as MicrOmega, Wisdom (Exomars 2020), Phebus (Bepi Colombo), PMCU Euclid, etc. He is used to work in clean rooms, and space test facilities such as thermal vacuum tanks, shakers and thermal chambers, with associated ECSS test specifications. He started working at Exotrail in mid-2016 first as a CNRS/UVSQ engineer, and then as an Exotrail engineer since August 2018. He acts as AIT engineer at Exotrail and is in charge of our test equipment and the AIT of our thrusters.
Paul
Dewost
Space Mechanics
Engineer
Paul graduated from École polytechnique (Palaiseau, France) in Mechanics. He enrolled
in a work-study contract between Exotrail and ISAE-Supaéro (Toulouse, France), a world
leader in aeronautics and aerospace engineering higher education, from which he will get
a MSc in Aerospace Engineering.
Paul developed his interest for the New Space industry when he worked as an AOCS intern
for Airbus Defence and Space. He notably designed and prototyped constraints avoidance
algorithms for a constellation of LEO telecommunication satellites. He is majoring in
Signals and Systems at ISAE-Supaero.
Andrea
Fiorentino
Space Mechanics
Engineer
Andrea holds a MSc in Space Engineering from the University of Rome “Sapienza”, a French Engineering Diploma from ISAE-SUPAERO, a Master of Research in Automatics and Signal Treatment from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Cachan), and a Master of Research in Neurotechnology where he worked in Reinforcement learning applications. He worked on Space debris as an intern at Airbus and then at CNES within the Space Mechanics department on behalf of Thales Services for 3 years. Andrea leads the orbital mechanics development at Exotrail.
Thibault
Halloin
R&D
Engineer
Thibault is our R&D Engineer - Thibault is a recent graduate from IPSA (Paris, France) with a Master’s degree in Aerospace engineering, with a specialization in launchers and satellites. For its end-of-studies internship, he integrated the electric propulsion team within the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). He has been involved in the development of new space systems. He then developed an optimized version of a low power Hall thruster and designed a first draft of a thrust balance for micro-thrusters. He is in charge of improving the performances of our cathodes and Hall thrusters at Exotrail.
Maxime
Montès
Electronics
Engineer
Maxime is a graduate of the CESI engineering school of Toulouse. Specialized in embedded electronic systems, he worked three years for Assystem developing dedicated nano-satellites test-benches and he discovered the Cubesat domain. Moreover, he spent three months within the F’SATI (French South African Institute of Technology) working on the ZACUBE-2, more specifically on the telecommunication part. Maxime is an electronic enthusiast and is Exotrail’s McGyver on top of being a confirmed Apple-addict. He joined Exotrail in October 2018 as Electronics Engineer.
Jean-Baptiste
Lefèvre
AIT
Engineer
Jean-Baptiste works as an Assembly, Integration & Tests engineer, particularly on the fluidics subsystem. Jean-Baptiste has been launching rockets for 5 years in French Guiana! He supervised and lead launch operation teams during Ariane 5 and Vega launch campaigns. Jean-Baptiste also mastered all the fluidic aspects of cryogenic and storable-propellant upper stages. He has achieved more than 30 launches and spent two years in Kourou managing ground segment maintenance and exploitation industrial contracts before joining an Ariane 6 development team.
Pierre-Olivier
Mine
Tests
Architect
Pierre-Olivier has more than 10 years of experience in the space industry, building up experience in mechanical and thermal engineering. He worked 5 years in CNRS particularly on the BepiColombo ESA mission. He was the PHEBUS payload thermal architect. Then he joined Sodern (Ariane Group) for 2 years as a thermo-mechanical architect, working on optical payloads for ESA missions or defence. Finally, he spent almost 4 years in the UK in Airbus Defence and Space as a propulsion thermal architect for Telecom satellites. His role as our Test Architect in Exotrail is to optimise the thruster test (qualification & acceptance) philosophy in conjunction with the new space market. He is involved in the thermo-mechanical design of the thruster as well.
Mikaël
Fillastre
Lead
Software Engineer
Mikael is a software engineer with 12 years of experience, specialized in oriented object development, Agile methods, and DevOps tools. He worked in the space industry for Airbus Defence & Space and Thales Alenia Space. More than just developing new functionalities he was also involved in project management based on Agile methods. He also set up development environment & software architecture, ensuring code quality and robustness. He implemented a tool used to encode the telecommands to pilot the first electrical orbit raising satellite launched by Airbus Defence & Space. Mikael acts as Lead Software Engineer on ExoOps® products and oversees the global software architecture and good practices of Exotrail.
Antonio
Gurciullo
Plasma Physics
Research Engineer
Antonio received his BSc degree in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 2013 and his MSc degree in Electrophysics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden in 2015. He then had been pursuing a PhD degree in Electronic Engineering at University of Surrey within the Surrey Space Centre where he focused on technologies for enabling the use of alternative propellants in electric propulsion. He was also involved in projects supported by both institutional (ESA, UK Space Agency) and industrial (SSTL, Airbus DS) funding bodies while being a Research Assistant at the Surrey Space Centre in 2017. In 2018, he spent six months at Stanford University where he carried out an experimental investigation of a Hall Effect Thruster operated with molecular propellants. At Exotrail, Antonio oversees the development and characterisation of the plasma thrusters.
Laura
de Felice
Office
Manager
With over 5 years of experience in professional office executive assistant positions
and a track record of strong performance in high-volume, high-pressure environments,
Laura skillfully manages administrative duties and client relations at Exotrail.
As Office Manager, she ensures the smooth operation of the company with her robust
knowledge of administrative, legal management and efficient handling of purchases
and suppliers contracts. Laura also provides support to the team in fulfilling their
ongoing professional development & HR requests.
Michele
Franci
Head of Business Development
Benjamin
Auger
IT Architect & Software Engineer
Manon
Carpentier
Thermal & Mechanical Architect