News Releases

December 2007

Patrice Kerhousse, new head of Commercial Development and Space Evaluation

Patrice Kerhousse, a specialist in spatial mechanisms, spent a large portion of his career as an engineer with Aerospatiale, then as the manager of the mechanisms department at ESA providing support for all projects. He joins Onera to work for the promotion, development and evaluation of space-related activities.

After graduating from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, he began his career in 1990 working on developing suspensions for use in automobile races (rallies and circuits). In 1994, he swapped the mechanics of racing cars for that of satellites, joining Aerospatiale in Cannes. He started by developing the optical mechanisms of the Helios2 observation satellite, before moving on to develop the mechanisms of the deployable radiator for the Stentor technological satellite, and finally the mechanisms for the solar generators for all of the telecommunication programs. In 2000, he was appointed head of the mechanisms department, composed of around fifteen people.

In 2003, he left Cannes for the ESA in Noordwijk (Netherlands), where he was responsible for the mechanisms section, a team in charge of providing support for all ongoing ESA projects, upstream technological developments, and CDF (Concurrent Design Facility) pilot projects. He also managed the work of the ESTL Space Tribology Laboratory in Manchester (20 people) and presided over the global ESMATS (European Space Mechanisms and Tribology Symposium) conference, a biannual event attended by over 200 specialists.

At the age of 41, he arrived at Onera to head Commercial Development and Evaluation for Space. His responsibilities include:

• managing the formulation and follow-up of the commercial development strategy for the space sector
• ensuring that Onera is optimally placed in terms of technological developments upstream of and during major programs
• promoting Onera’s skills in forums, conferences, symposia etc. and prospecting industrial clients.

Last Update: December 17, 2007 - © ONERA 2009 - Terms of use