Jeusset Benjamin

European Space Agency

I was born in Paris on the 21st of June 1975, I studied Law at the University of Toulouse 1 and I obtained two Masters degree, one in European Law and another one in International Law. Then, I passed the admission exam to the Bar school in Paris Nanterre.

I started my career in Law firms in Toulouse and Paris, and in 2004 I was hired as Contracts Officer at the European Space Agency (ESA) at ESTEC in the Netherlands. I oversaw contracts for the International Space Station, in particular its operations and commercialisation activities.

Then in 2011, I joined the ESTEC Contracts service for Earth Observation projects where I was entrusted with the Copernicus Sentinel-2/5/6 and Earth Explorers Aeolus and Swarm satellites development contracts. In 2015, I became the Head of the Mechanical Engineering and Product Assurance Procurement Service, where I managed a team of 12 staff and contractors, who supported space technology procurement and contracts and the services of the ESTEC satellite test centre.

In November 2020, I was selected to become the new Head of Operations and Ground Segment Contracts Division at ESRIN (Frascati, Italy) leading a team of 25 staff and contractors, responsible for placing and monitoring contracts initiated by ESRIN (the ESA Centre of Earth Observation) and ESOC (the ESA Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany) with the European industry for ground segment development, operations, and data management of a variety of ESA and third-party space missions, in particular in the Earth Observation domain. I am also in charge of procurement activities and contracts for the General Procurement domain (Information Technology) and for the Space Safety Programme (Active Debris Removal, Clearspace-1, In-Orbit Servicing, planetary defence and Cosmic missions).