UK Chapter of SSPI names Parker the 2024 Satellite Personality of the Year
December 3, 2024
At the 2024 Better Satellite World Awards Dinner, the SSPI UK Chapter named Dr David Parker FRAeS, Visiting Professor of Space Systems and Policy at the University of Southampton and former Chief Executive at the UK Space Agency, as its 9th Satellite Personality of the Year. The Satellite Personality of the Year Award celebrates an individual for their achievements in the promotion and development of the satellite sector in the UK. In a first for the Award, three nominees were selected for the 2024 Personality of the Year before Parker was named as the recipient at the Better Satellite World Awards Dinner. Mark Boggett of Seraphim Space Fund and Antonio Franchi of the European Space Agency also received certificates as finalists for the Award.
Parker has led a distinguished thirty-five-year career in the space sector, spanning industry, UK government and the European Space Agency (ESA). Until June 2023, he served as ESA’s Director of Space Exploration at ESTEC in the Netherlands, overseeing astronaut missions to the International Space Station, Europe’s involvement in Artemis and pioneering projects like training an astronaut with a physical disability.
Previously, he was the Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency (2013-2016), where he led Tim Peake’s ISS mission and negotiated ESA’s first UK center in Harwell. Starting in the UK space industry in 1990, he contributed to projects like XMM-Newton and ExoMars. Parker holds a degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a PhD from NASA Langley Research Center. He has received several accolades, including the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Geoffrey Pardoe award. He currently works part-time at ESA, serves on the UK Space Agency Board and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton.
The Satellite Personality of the Year Award is presented each year at the Better Satellite World Awards Dinner, a festive networking event and dinner hosted by the SSPI UK Chapter at Whitehall Place in London. The Better Satellite World Awards honor established companies along with disruptive innovators who make the world more prosperous, healthier, better-educated, more sustainable and more inclusive.