Society News
Howard Russell Nye FRAeS
Howard was educated at Alleyn’s School and read physics at Bristol University. His space career began in 1973 at the British Aircraft Corporation, Filton. Following work on the Hubble Space Telescope Solar Array, he became head of the BAe-Bristol solar array group in 1978. In 1980 he joined Vega-Ltd to prepare ESA Spacelab 1 operations at ESA-ESOC in Germany, and astronaut training at NASA-MSFC in Huntsville, Alabama, later moving to NASA-Johnson in Houston for the Spacelab 1 mission carried aloft by Space Shuttle Columbia.
He joined ESA in 1983 assigned to the ESAGiotto mission, playing a lead role in cruise phase operations and the successful encounter with comet Halley in March 1986. He was then concurrently responsible for Hipparcos preparations and postlaunch recovery, ISO preparations and as flight director, the unforeseen Giotto Extended Mission to encounter a second comet, successfully completed in 1992.
From 1993, he was responsible for delivery of both the mission operations centre at ESOC and the science operations centre in Spain for the XMMNewton mission and all related activities until the end of the in-orbit commissioning in 2000. In 2002, he led an ESA co-operation involving eight ESA member states, negotiating an agreement in 2004 assigning responsibilities for flight operation of the EU Galileo satellites, valid until 2016.
From 2004, all five ESA establishments across Europe were placed under his responsibility and from 2006, he was additionally responsible for ESAwide corporate informatics. He transferred to Paris in 2009 to elaborate political and financial solutions for evolution of ESA-HQ, liaising with the Mayor of Paris and French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was responsible from 2012 until the end of 2014 for ESA-wide organisational change and cost-efficiency.
Since 2015, he has offered aerospace consulting. He is a Fellow of the Society and Member of the Institute of Physics and fluent in French and German.
Following the 2021 Council elections, the following were elected to serve three years until May 2024:
- Mr David Gordon Chinn FRAeS
- Lt Cdr Richard M Gearing FRAeS
- Mrs Janet Sims Mitchell FRAeS
- Capt Hermione Irwin Munns FRAeS
- Mr Daniel Olufisan MRAeS
- Mrs Rachna Sharma Reiter (Affiliate)
The Council 2021-2022 is:
- President Mr Howard Nye FRAeS
- President-Elect Air Cdre Peter Round FRAeS
- Past-President Prof Jonathan Cooper FREng FRAeS
Elected Members
- Dr Sophy Antrobus MBE FRAeS
- Miss Hilary Barton CEng FRAeS
- Mr Martin Broadhurst OBE FRAeS
- Dr Alice Bunn FRAeS
- Mr David Chinn CEng FRAeS
- Mrs Yvonne Elsorougi FRAeS
- Lt Cdr Richard Gearing CEng FRAeS
- Mr Trevor Higgs CEng FRAeS
- Miss Laura Hoang CEng MRAeS
- Miss Kerissa Khan MRAeS
- Mrs Janet Sims Mitchell CEng FRAeS
- Capt Hermione Irwin Munns FRAeS
- Mr Daniel Olufisan IEng MRAeS
- Mrs Rachna Reiter
- Mr Jamie Sayer CEng MRAeS
- Capt Nigel Scopes FRAeS
- Mr Scott Vaughan FRAeS
- Dr Alisdair Wood CEng FRAeS
Co-opted members*
- Sir Christopher Harper KBE FRAeS
- Mr Nicholas Shave FRAeS
Division Presidents
- AM Salim Arshad FRAeS (Pakistan Division)
- Mr Shaun Johnson IEng FRAeS (New Zealand Division)
- Mr Gert Jansen van Rensburg MRAeS (South Africa Division)
- Mr Geoffrey Wilkinson MRAeS (Australian Division)
Branches Committee Chair
- Dr Simon Hall CEng MRAeS
Specialist Groups Committee Chair
- Mr Tony Henley MRAeS
In attendance at Council and Board of Trustee Meetings
- Chief Executive: Sir Brian Burridge CBE FRAeS
- Governance and Compliance Manager: Mrs Saadiya Ogeer
*Please note, the co-opted positions for the new Council term will be agreed at the June meeting.