Christian Erd studied physics at the Technical University of Vienna, followed by a PhD at CERN in Geneva. In 1991, he joined ESA at its ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands. He was first part of a team preparing the focal plane detector for the LEGSPC soft X-ray instrument on the BeppoSAX space telescope. He was a member of the scientific operations team on the ESA XMM-Newton X-ray observing mission, responsible for in-flight calibrations of the reflection grating spectrometer. Christian followed the development of this instrument from its earliest phases through to the first flight operations. He was responsible for a study of a lander and balloon platform to be deployed on Saturn's moon Titan. In 2008, he became study director for the predecessor of the JUICE mission, which will send a spacecraft to Jupiter and its moons. He followed this program throughout its development, first as performance manager, then as systems engineering manager. JUICE was launched in April 2023. Since September 2023, he has been in charge of the LISA spacecraft, which is preparing the implementation of the first gravitational wave observatory in space.
Conference: Why was it decided to use solar power for a mission to Jupiter?
The main objectives of ESA’s JUICE mission to Jupiter will be summarized, and its implementation described. The challenges of such a mission due to the environment encountered in space will be reported. The trade-off between using solar power generators or radiothermal generators will be discussed, and the implementation of solar generators will be described.