{"id":11153,"date":"2025-03-12T09:31:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/?page_id=11153"},"modified":"2025-03-15T11:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T11:50:53","slug":"ceas-awards-franco-ongaro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/ceas-awards-franco-ongaro\/","title":{"rendered":"CEAS Awards Franco Ongaro"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n2023 Dr. Franco Ongaro<\/b><\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Franco Ongaro, for his remarkable and authentically European vision of Research and Technological development in the aeronautics and space sectors, fostering and supporting innovation, industrial research, and academic education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Statement of Justification<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Franco Ongaro is an example of an outstanding European career covering both aeronautics and <\/span>
space sectors, in private industries and public entities, with constant contact with academia and the <\/span>
younger generation.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 <\/span>
He majored in Aeronautical Engineering at the Politecnico of Milano. After a short work period in <\/span>
Aeritalia Spazio in Turin, in 1987, he joined ESA in Paris HQ as a junior engineer working in the <\/span>
Columbus Programme. In 1988 he moved to ESTEC as head of the Columbus Payload Interfaces Unit. <\/span>
In 1994 he returned to Paris to join the ESA Strategy Directorate and take charge of the General <\/span>
Studies Programme. From 2001-2004 he managed the Aurora exploration programme, reporting to <\/span>
ESA DG. In 2006 he became head of the ESA Department in charge of Advanced Concepts and <\/span>
Technology Planning. In 2009 he became Head of the Telecom Technology Department. From 1994 <\/span>
until 2009, as a contract professor, he taught a new graduate course in spacecraft design at the <\/span>
Politecnico of Milano.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Until February 2022, he had been, for three mandates, the longest-serving Director of Technology, <\/span>
Engineering, and Quality (D\/TEC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the head of the European <\/span>
Space Technology Centre (ESA ESTEC) in the Netherlands.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 <\/span>
He initiated the Aurora exploration programme (2001-2004), which started the ExoMars mission; <\/span>
led change in management approaches by introducing concurrent engineering (ESTEC Concurrent <\/span>
Design Facility), by redirecting communication strategy; creating a new multidisciplinary research <\/span>
team (the Advanced Concept Team) and starting the new Element 10 of the ARTES programme, Iris, <\/span>
dedicated to Air Traffic Management satellite communications. Furthermore, as D\/TEC, he has been <\/span>
responsible for raising the value of the General Support Technology Programme from 250M\u20ac to 1 <\/span>
B\u20ac, with significant successes in introducing Additive Manufacturing, Debris Mitigation, <\/span>
Digitalisation, In-Orbit Testing, etc., and issuing the first ESA Technology Strategy.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 <\/span>
He is currently the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of Leonardo SpA. With his team, he <\/span>
oversees the coordination of R&T for the entire group. He is in charge of fundamental research <\/span>
activities within the 11 multidisciplinary corporate labs, where 110 PhDs are employed, intending <\/span>
to reach 200. This research activity is supported by more than 90 universities around Italy and <\/span>
abroad, with PhD scholarships. In his activity, he also scouts and support start-ups, both via <\/span>
collaborations with other accelerators and via Leonardo\u2019s own Business Innovation Factory. He <\/span>
oversees the group\u2019s IPR and patenting strategy and coordination of Institutionally funded R&D at <\/span>
the national and international levels. Finally, his team drives the digital transformation of the group <\/span>
by running the Da Vinci1 HPC, the Cloud Computing developments, and the digital engineering tools. <\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The relevant features of his career can be summarized as follows: <\/span>
\u2022 European dimension: having worked in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. <\/span>
\u2022 Multidisciplinary dimension: having worked in the aeronautics and space sectors. <\/span>
\u2022 Industrial and technological innovation dimension: having initiated the Aurora exploration <\/span>
programme which started the ExoMars mission, having introduced concurrent engineering <\/span>
at ESTEC with the Concurrent Design Facility, having started the new Iris programme <\/span>
dedicated to Air Traffic Management satellite communications, having led the issuing the <\/span>
first ESA Technology Strategy, and currently scouting and supporting start-ups via Leonardo <\/span>
Business Innovation Factory.<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Research dimension: having created a new multidisciplinary research team at ESTEC, the <\/span>
Advanced Concept Team, and being currently in charge of fundamental research activities in <\/span>
the 11 multidisciplinary corporate labs at Leonardo.<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Academic dimension: having contributed to the education at Politecnico di Milano.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Franco Ongaro has been a member of AIDAA since 1986 and has participated in the 2011 and 2015 <\/span>
CEAS Air and Space Conference as an invited speaker.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Nominated by<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Erasmo Carrera, Full Professor in Aerospace Structures at Politecnico di Torino, AIDAA President <\/span><\/p>

Sara Bagassi, Associate Professor in Aerospace Structures at the University of Bologna, member of <\/span>
ICAS Programme and Executive Committees, and Board member of AIDAA<\/span><\/p>


Pierangelo Masarati, Full Professor in Aerospace Structures at Politecnico di Milano, Board <\/span>
member of AIDAA and Chair of CEAS Rotorcraft Committee<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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2023 Dr. Franco Ongaro Franco Ongaro, for his remarkable and authentically European vision of Research and Technological development in the aeronautics and space sectors, fostering and supporting innovation, industrial research, and academic education.\u00a0 Statement of Justification Franco Ongaro is an example of an outstanding European career covering both aeronautics and space sectors, in private industries…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11153","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11153"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11304,"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11153\/revisions\/11304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}