François Mignard (born the 23rd of July 1949) is a Frenchastronomer and the former director of theCERGA Observatory (French:Centre de recherches en géodynamique et astrométrie) of theObservatoire de la Côte d'Azur in southern France. He is an expert in spaceastrometry andSolar System dynamics, and played major roles in theEuropean Space Agency'sHipparcos andGaia missions.
After is study's at the Normal Superior School (French: l'École Normale Supérieur) and at the University of Paris, François Mignard joined theCERGA in 1974, then integrated theCNRS as an associate professor in 1975. The same year, he defended his post-graduate thesis on the movement of a satellite with high eccentricity.
[1] Mignard is an active member in several commissions of theInternational Astronomical Union and chairman of its working group that amends the standards for theInternational Celestial Reference System.[2]
François Mignard played a central role in the missions of spaceAstrometry of theEuropean Space Agency especiallyHipparcos andGaia missions.
For theGaia mission, launched in 2013, he was responsible of the EuropeanData Processing and Analysis Consortium from 2006 to 2012 and is currently a member ofGaia Science Team ofESA, has the main researcher for the french participation.
In 2019, he was awarded by theAcadémie des Sciences theCentre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) award in astrophysics and space sciences[1].
He also chaired at theBureau des longitudes from 2020 to 2023 and is a member of theAcadémie de l'air et de l'espace and was elected member of theAcadémie des Sciences in December 2023.
Asteroid12898 Mignard, discovered by astronomers with theLONEOS program in 1998, was named in his honor.[1] The officialnaming citation was published by theMinor Planet Center on 24 July 2002 (M.P.C. 46109).[3]
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