Chiara Cocchiara
Chiara Cocchiara is a Systems Operations Engineer for the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). In her current role at EUMETSAT, she is responsible for operations preparation for future satellite missions with a particular focus on Earth Observation. Chiara manages the mission Reference Operations Plan and Handover Plan to Operations as part of this work. Since joining EUMETSAT, Chiara has held many different roles, each of which gained increased responsibilities over the previous role. She acted as the Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOP) Service Manager for the launch of Metop-C satellites, a position in which she also needed to cover the work for a missing role in her team. Chiara initiated and led procurement of an improved solution for electronic logbooks for the Mission Control Center by writing up the requirements and analyzing the proposals from external contractors to determine the best fit technically and financially. She also wrote the requirements and oversaw development and implementation of the newest User Notification System at EUMETSAT. Chiara has a Master of Science degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the Università di Bologna, a Master of Business Administration from the Rome Business School and is a graduate of the Space Economy Academy, and she is currently working on her PhD in Space Economy at the University of Palmero.
Chiara is known at EUMETSAT for her strong leadership and communication skills, as well as her drive to constantly seek challenges and ways to grow in her own career and within her team as a whole. She is also known for her strong technical knowledge of EPS-SG missions, as well as a broad spectrum of Systems Ops activities. Before joining EUMETSAT, she worked as a Mission Performance Analyst and then a System Operations Engineer for Serco, where she was responsible for routine satellite operations monitoring and control. Chiara also served as Crew Engineer and Commander of a Mars analogue mission for The Mars Society. She has accepted several awards for her achievements, including the Young Space Leader award from the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). Chiara was also named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 in the industry category and an Innovator Under 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Outside of working hours, Chiara donates her time to several organizations. She is an active member of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), where she is the Manager for SpaceOps activities and was part of the team that organized the Space Generation Congress at the IAC in 2015. Chiara is also active in space education. She writes articles for the Focus newspaper in Italy and volunteers at the Space Economy Academy, where she acts as Programs Director and Advisor. In these roles, Chiara has served as a visiting lecturer at multiple universities in Italy and Germany, where she teaches about space operations.
