From overseeing the Automated Transfer Vehicle’s journeys to the International Space Station to managing ESA’s Space Transportation Office, her story is one of curiosity, courage, and cross-continental teamwork. How does one engineer find herself commanding rockets in South America? And what lessons can Earthbound professionals learn from a life spent reaching for orbit?

Charlotte Beskow studied at Sigtunaskolan Humanistiska Läroverket (SSHL) in Sweden, graduating in 1978 from the Natural Science programme.

In 1988 she joined European Space Agency (ESA), working on major space projects across Europe.

Photo Credit: Charlotte Beskow

In September 2023 she announced her retirement; one of her key objectives after retiring is to engage with schools and students to talk about European space activities.

Managing a team of engineers and professionals in a high-stakes environment like space launches requires strong leadership. Can you share some insights into your leadership style and how you motivate your team?

I was one member of a team and, as mentioned above, I had the fortune to work with mostly very good managers, The work is done by industry and our role is to manage the contract we have with industry. You can do this formally ie demand reports as per the contract, or you get involved, try to understand the details and the nature of the problems, try to work with your counterpart to find solutions that work, find extra resources and defend them if they are needed, keep your manager informed so that the teams are not disturbed needlessly, keep open lines of communication with everyone involved to minimise the misunderstandings.

Working in Kourou must have presented unique challenges and opportunities. Could you describe some of the key aspects of managing space launches in such a diverse and dynamic environment?

The great thing about working in Kourou is that the priorities are crystal clear for everyone concerned. From CSG director, launcher manager, satellite managers to the restaurant manger, the cleaners and drivers and anyone in between we all have the same goal. When there are difficulties you pitch in and do your level best. It is hard work and you can end up working very long hours but, as I stated above, the satisfaction when you succeed makes it all worth while. However, this only works as long as we have good and competent managers. Mangers who surround themselves with high quality staff of high integrity and professional capabilities. I have been lucky in my career in that I have almost always had very good bosses, who help their teams succeed.
When you work with space projects you quickly need to get used to the fact that development is non linear, There are setbacks and big problems as well as successes. This is particularly true at a launch base where many campaigns take place in parallel. What might seem to be a minor incident can have a huge impact. We are also affected by matters outside our control. Like when a fishing drawler destroyed the telecom cable linking French Guiana to the rest of the world (March 2018). There is never a dull moment and each day brings fresh challenges. This kind of work is not for everyone.

I never had a definite plan of what post I wanted to attain. The focus was instead on doing something interesting and worthwhile, working abroad and working with interesting people. While in engineering school (Sweden) I was given the opportunity to exchange one year at LTH for one year at ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France. It was arranged by the university and the objective was to become fluent in French. I volunteered to go and was accepted. The year at ENSEEIHT was definitely a door opener. Being able to communicate is an asset when you work in a multinational environment and communication is key to running a successful space project.
The next unplanned step was in late 1992 early 1993. The project I was working on (Space Station Freedom) wasn’t going anywhere. When managers from Centre Spatial Guyanais turned up looking for French speaking non French nationals to come and work at the spaceport I became intrigued. It was a big step, but I had the support of ESA and the promise to come back if it didn’t work out so off I went.
I spent three years in Kourou, French Guiana, working as tracking coordinator (RLOC), a front row position in Jupiter control room.

It was hard work with tough deadlines but we worked as a team and the satisfaction of having worked on a successful launch was enormous.
During my time at CSG (1993-1996) I was RLOC on twenty of the thirty launches, including the three that failed. The first time was a setback, the second very sad but the third failure had the biggest impact. It was the first Ariane 5 flight, AR501. It was a formative event and made me delve into the process of risk management, requirements analysis and justification, testing and test reports, quality control and all the other nitty gritty details that contribute to a successful project. Success is never guaranteed, you must always plan for failures. This is one reason our projects are costly and take a long time to develop.
I came back to ESA in 1999 and began working on the ATV project. We launched from Kourou with Ariane 5 so my experience from CSG was very useful. ATV was very complicated. It had to execute a multitude of missions (free flight, approach and RDV, attached phase cargo transfer and reboost, controlled reentry and burnup) much more than any ESA satellite had ever had to do.

Going to the ISS meant ATV had to be Fail operational and Fail safe: ie the first failure of any subsystem system had to be transparent and after the second failure the vehicle had to be safe wrt the ISS. This led to a very complex design. ATV had two units of most subsystems but it also required four power chains, three nominal computers and two safety computers. Making al this fit together within the allocated mass and power budgets and ensuring it all worked was a herculean task. At the end of ATV, in 2015, I joined the quality department and ended up working on EarthCare for about a year. When the post of STS/ESA Representative in Kourou came up I applied and was selected. The post of STS/ESA Representative is not an operational role so my workload , thankfully, decreased. I still had the pleasure of being involved in all the launches as well as the preparation for the future and everything that was going on in Kourou that could impact ESAs activities, but I only had a fraction of the pressure. My long experience came in handy and I thoroughly enjoyed my time on Kourou

As I see, you are now retired, do you see these positions as a point of arrival of an amazing career in Space or do you try to stay connected with your professional life?

I definitely stay connected. I follow what is happening with Ariane 6 (launch planned this summer), Vega and, of course, EarthCare which is scheduled for launch in May. But I am now only a spectator.
A retired ESA colleague arranges trips for young ESA engineers who wish to visit French Guiana and the CSG and I have participated as an extra guide.

Collaboration is key in space exploration. How have you fostered partnerships and collaborations within ESA and with other international space agencies during your tenure?

Absolutely. All space projects are multinational and the ATV / ISS is an order of magnitude more complex than most. Communication skills and cultural understanding and appreciation are as important as engineering skills.

ATV was very significant. We did something no other vehicle had ever done, an unmanned rendez-vous in space. Technically and managerially ATV was an extremely complicated project. We docked to the Russian side of the ISS and ESA had traded the European computer (DMS) for the active part of the Russian docking system and this HW and SW had to be integrated into a European vehicle by French engineers whose knowledge of English, at the time, was not the best. Our Russian colleagues did not speak English so it was all done via interpreters and translators. There were times when we felt as if we were actors in Ground Hog Day 2. By the time we got to ATV 2 (2011) a few of us were quite good at Russian and our Russian colleagues had plenty of English.
With respect to my role, the ESA flight segment team was quite small and each one had one area. Mine was Operations and Crew interfaces. I worked with one colleague for the operations part, with an astronaut for the crew interfaces and with the cargo manager for cargo related items.

Together we worked with our industrial partners, Aerospatiale (now ArianeGroup) and Alenia (now TAS-I), NASA Mission Control Houston, Russian Mission Control, Russian Engineering department, the ESA Astronaut Center in Cologne, CNES, who was developing the ATV Control Center and the ESA Ground segment team. It was a complicated set up with many competing wills and egos. I was reasonably good at navigating throught this maze.
The ESA teams were too small. We worked hard but there was never really enough time, everything we did was important.
For ATV 2, I was the deputy mission manager. There was still not enough time and the teams were still too small. We did flight evaluation of ATV N while operating ATV N and preparing ATV N+1. It was a challenge. It got better with ATV 4 and number 5 was easier since there was no ATV6 and by then we had all our processes honed to maximum efficiency.

EarthCare aims at improving our understanding of clouds, what happens inside them, how they evolve, how moisture behaves inside the clouds. There is little data available on this so the data provided by EarthCare can be a game changer and improve the models used to predict weather. The satellite has been in devlopment for many years and has suffered more than it’s fair share of setbacks. It is joint ESA JAXA project with four instruments and all four work together, so if one has a problem the launch is delayed. I worked on the project a little more than a year and looked after operations and SW PA. During this time the high power transmitter of one instrument failed and took some time to repair, by then I was in Kourou.
If all had gone according to plan I would have been present for the launch but then Russia invaded Ukraine which meant the European Soyuz launcher was no longer available. EarthCare will now be launched with SpaceX and I will be VERY exited when countdown starts.

Space development has two key elements: infrastructure and logistics and instrument development. Infrastructure and logistics are similar to what you find anywhere on large projects (nuclear reactors, train tunnels, hospital construction…). Instrument development is something else, where developers are forever trying to do new things, do the same things better, consume less power, weigh less etc. it is a never ending iterative loop. What we did with ATV was exceptional. What ATV required of the Ariane launcher was also exceptional. Launchers might look the same but in general they are adapted to their passengers and ESAs passengers always require something extra, forever forcing the developers to stretch their imagination and find ways to respond to the customer needs. Getting almost to the right location when you are heading into orbit is not good enough. A successful project means that the three parts must function, the satellite, the launcher and the control center. Getting it all ready on time is always a challenge. At ESA and in Europe we are very good at this.
The experience gained with ATV has allowed ESA to be the NASA partner for Artemis Moon missions. ESA provides the Service Module and it is parts of the ATV team (those that did not retire or go to Ariane 6) that designed it.
We do our work diligently and conscientiously, we apply our processes and standards and our success rate is very high.

I worked with one colleague for the operations part, with an astronaut for the crew interfaces and with the cargo manager for cargo related items.

We do our work diligently and conscientiously, we apply our processes and standards and our success rate is very high.

Kourou is far away. If something breaks down it can take a while before replacements or spares can be flown in. Many campaigns are often going on in parallel and the resources have to be shared between them yet each payload must be given top service. The climate can be tough, the rains heavy. Planning and logistics management are keys to success.

The other main challenge is the amount of infrastructure that needs to be kept in working order. It can be hard to convince politicians in Europe that they need o spend millions on buildings because they can not fathom the destructive force of the tropical climate coupled with the winds coming off the ocean. When politicians allocate money to space transportation they tend to think engines, launchers, test facilities… not office buildings, roads, and air conditioning. Yet without this infrastructure the CSG can not function.