Efforts Toward European Space Sovereignty and Autonomy

Marco Villa has 25+ years of exceptional performance as system engineer, manager, director and executive. He established SpaceX’s mission operations team and enabled Dragon’s missions to the International Space Station. While at Tyvak and Terran Orbital, Marco covered multiple executive roles fostering the company’s growth in the US and European markets. Marco has firsthand knowledge of the transition of space activities to the private sector, and is a skilled developer of medium and long-term vision for aerospace organizations, with direct involvement toward tactical objectives and strategy definitions. An investor himself, he is known for his entrepreneurial attitude and understanding on how to generate value through appropriate evolution of an organization’s leadership, services and partnerships through its life cycle.

Fabio Angellotti has 20 years of hands-on experience in the space industry, with a strong background spanning both institutional organizations and the private sector. He has contributed to a broad range of international space projects, including the International Space Station, deep space missions, earth observation, telecommunication, and navigation satellites.
Since 2020, Fabio has been with EUSPA (formerly GSA), where he serves as Space Segment Leader. In this role, he leads activities related to the space segment and launch services entrusted to EUSPA across the various components of the EU Space Programme.
Previously, Fabio worked at ESA/ESTEC on the EarthCARE mission, focusing on system-level engineering and following the development of the ATLID transmitter and CPR payload provided by JAXA. At Thales Alenia Space, he contributed to the Herschel and Planck missions, and later led the production and launch of the first Globalstar Second Generation satellites.
He began his career in 2005 at the Microgravity Advanced Research and Support Center in Italy, supporting space operations for the FSL payload on the Columbus module of the ISS.

Ian Carnelli is a seasoned space systems expert who joined the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2005 as part of the Advanced Concepts Team. Throughout his career, he has led pioneering mission concepts to asteroids, playing a key role in establishing ESA’s planetary defence programme. As General Studies Programme Manager, he shaped future missions across all space domains, supporting critical enabling technologies and payloads. Since 2019, Ian has led the Hera planetary defence mission—launched in 2024 in collaboration with NASA’s DART—to validate asteroid deflection techniques. In 2024, he became Head of the Systems Department, overseeing end-to-end systems engineering, space systems and AIT, in-orbit technology demonstrations, and cutting-edge domains like AI and advanced simulations.

Joost Elstak is ICEYE’s Vice President for Missions. ICEYE owns and operates the world’s largest constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. The company provides timely and reliable Earth observation data, mission satellites, as well as natural catastrophe solutions for companies and governments. ICEYE is the first company that has successfully miniaturized a SAR satellite, making it possible to launch more units to reliably image any location on Earth, every few hours, every day. ICEYE makes it possible for partners to own a constellation of satellites or purchase their capacity to provide a mission, from the same high-performance and proven satellite design used in ICEYE’s constellation. At ICEYE, Joost is responsible for securing ICEYE’s global mission opportunities. Joost joined ICEYE in 2023. Joost has been working on space programs for 20 years and in various roles. Having been involved as an engineer in experiments for Human Spaceflight and small satellite missions from his early twenties onwards, Joost has been part of the rise of new space first-hand. After spending several years in engineering and commercial roles with SSTL in the UK and ISIS – Innovative Solutions in Space in the Netherlands, Joost spent 7 years at Airbus, where he led the commercial team of the Airbus solar array group based in Leiden (NL) and Ottobrunn (D) and reported to the local CEO’s. Joost holds BSc and MSc degrees from Delft University of Technology’s renowned Aerospace Engineering Faculty and has served as president of its Space Society.

Master IT Engineer with broad experience in system engineer for defence and cyber security, from Spain, Germany and Luxembourg, for projects in the railway industry, EADS CASA (Airbus) for Eurofighter and UAV Ground Contril Systems, in DIEHL and moved 12 year ago into Luxembourg for cybersecurity sector where he has most of expertise.