Holger Krag acquired his master's in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Braunschweig, followed by a 4 year research period at the Institute of Aerospace System where he focussed on space debris modelling and surveillance. In 2002, he became a system engineer at Thales ATM at Langen (Germany) and was part of the development team of the Galileo ground mission segment (GMS), for which he worked in collocation with the customer in Toulouse, France. His main tasks included the development of the validation platform for the Galileo GMS.
In 2006, he joined ESA as an Analysist in the Space Debris Office at ESOC. He worked on establishing risk models and an operational collision avoidance system and contributed to first space surveillance studies. In 2014, he took the position of the Head of the Space Debris Office, which, among others, provides fundamental support to ESA’s Space Situational Awareness Programme. In 2019, he took over the position as the head of the programme and prepared the evolution into the new Space Safety Programme which was established at the Space19+ Ministerial in Sevilla. The new programme addresses an enlarged scope within the areas of Space Weather, Planetary Defence and Space Debris including early warning systems and mitigation measures and three ambitious missions (Lagrange, Hera und ADRIOS). He is lecturing on Space Debris at universities in Germany.
- Implementation of the SSA Programme
- Implementation of the Space Safety Programme
- Member of the OPS Management Team
- Defining the overall strategy for implementing the SSA/
- Space Safety Programme, in close coordination with participating States
- Consolidating the user requirements, architecture and corresponding studies, developments and services.
- Managing the resources delegated to the Space Safety Programme Office, including staff, budgets, industrial contracts and legal agreements in the areas of Space Weather, Space Debris, Planetary Defence, Cleanspace and Frequency Management
- Implementation of the Spanish Surveillance and Tracking System (S3T) Project
- Frequency Management and ESA representation at relevant international bodies
- ESA representation on space debris matters at relevant international bodies