Helge Eichhorn

Consulting Astrodynamicist

Professional Experience

  • 2025–now
    Consulting Astrodynamicist

    Self-employed

  • 2023–2025
    Freelancer – Satellite Constellation Design

    Libre Space Foundation

    • Led the design and development of the open source Ephemerista Python library for satellite constellation design for the European Space Agency (ESA) within the ARTES programme (1A.120)
  • 2022–2025
    Software Engineer – UAS Traffic Management

    DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH

    • Led the design and development of the React-based frontend of the ZEUS UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Traffic Management System
    • Re-designed and developed the map tool for the German Digital Platform for Unmanned Aviation (Dipul)
  • 2020–2022
    Principal Software Engineer

    Telespazio Germany GmbH

    • Led the design and development of the Lunar Service Volume Simulator (LSIM) for ESA's Lunar Communications and Navigation Service (LCNS) study — delivered as SaaS with a React frontend providing interactive 3D visualisations and a Julia backend
    • Maintained the operational simulator for the Galileo satellite navigation system
  • 2020
    Software Engineer – AI and Data Analytics

    Lufthansa Industry Solutions AS GmbH

    • Initiated and led business development efforts in the space domain to help counteract the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • 2018–2020
    Head of Mission Operations

    PTS – Planetary Transportation Systems GmbH

    • Built and led a top-performing team of three mission analysts and space engineers
    • Passed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) of PTS' first mission, a lunar lander, with ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR)
  • 2017–2018
    Software Engineer

    Telespazio VEGA Deutschland GmbH

    • Developed an attitude generation tool for the Italian Space Agency's PRISMA satellite mission
    • Maintained ESA's UMF (Unified Modelling Framework) for operational spacecraft simulator development
  • 2013–2016
    Research Assistant

    TU Darmstadt – Department of Computer Integrated Design

    • Benchmarked digital engineering data archiving systems for all business units of the Airbus Group
  • 2012–2013
    Intern – Mission Analysis

    European Space Operations Centre, ESA

    • Developed FASTOP (FASTOP AScent Trajectory OPtimizer) for rocket ascent trajectory optimisation, subsequently used at ESA for more than a decade

Education

  • 2011–2013
    M.Sc. in Mechanical and Process Engineering

    Technische Universität Darmstadt

  • 2007–2011
    B.Sc. in Mechanical and Process Engineering

    Technische Universität Darmstadt

Skills

Expert
Julia, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript
Intermediate
Rust, Java, C++, C, Fortran
Beginner
Elixir, Elm, SQL
Space
Astrodynamics, constellation design, link budget analysis, interference analysis
CI/CD
GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Docker, Podman
AI/ML
fastai, PyTorch, Keras

Publications

  1. 1. Eichhorn, Helge; Steindorf, Lukas; Cano, Juan Luis: Astrodynamics.jl: A Julia-Based Open Source Framework for Orbital Mechanics. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Astrodynamics Tools and Techniques (ICATT 2018), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, 6–9 November 2018.
  2. 2. Eichhorn, Helge; Cano, Juan Luis; McLean, Frazer; Anderl, Reiner: A Comparative Study of Programming Languages for Next-Generation Astrodynamics Systems. CEAS Space Journal (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12567-017-0170-8
  3. 3. Eichhorn, Helge; Anderl, Reiner: Plyades: A Python Library for Space Mission Design. Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Python in Science (EuroSciPy 2015), Cambridge, United Kingdom, 28–29 August 2015 (pp. 9–12).