Chiara Manfletti has a dual Italian and German nationality. She holds a masters degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London (2001), a masters degree in space studies from the International Space University (2002) and a PhD from RWTH Aachen (2010). She worked for the German Aerospace Center in liquid rocket propulsion. She later joined the European Space Agency in 2016, as Programme Advisor to the Director General and then as the Head of Policy and Programmes Coordination. She guided the preparation of ESA Ministerial Meetings programmatically and financially. In March 2019 she was nominated the first President of the then just founded Portuguese national space agency and setup the space agency from scratch as a modern space agency and established a new space implementation strategy for Portugal. Today she is CEO of Neuraspace and Professor of Space Mobility and Propulsion at TUM.
Artemis II changed something. For the first time since Apollo, humanity looked at the Moon again not as a memory, but as a destination. Millions followed the mission live, captivated by the idea that humans are truly returning to deep space. But this new lunar age is about more …