Marco Tantardini

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT MARCO TANTARDINI

Marco Tantardini is an aerospace engineer, with experience in strategy and policy. Currently, he is Space Strategy and Business Development Lead for Europe at Lockheed Martin. Former Expert to the Italian Government (Prime Minister\' Office) and Advisor to the Chair of the inter-Ministerial Committee for Space and Aerospace Policy; former Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. From November 2020 to August 2023, he kept a monthly section titled “Space Race” in Longitude, an Italian magazine that enjoys a privileged relationship with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 20••••20 he served as an Expert in the Technical team for the coordination of economic policy (NTPE) in the Government of Italy, focusing on Space Policy, and especially on strengthening the bilateral in Civil Space between Italy and the United States of America. He holds a BSc in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, and a MSc in Space Engineering from the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, with a MSc thesis in Applied Mathematics and Astrodynamics at Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. In 2010 Marco built the strategy and the core of the team that led to the Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) study at the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) at Caltech in Pasadena, and in 2011‐2012 he promoted this project to aerospace leaders and governments. In 20••••12 Marco also acted as the ESA contact point for the KISS’ ARM study, reporting to the ESA HQ in Paris. In spring 2013 the White House and the NASA HQ backed ARM (renamed Asteroid Redirect Mission) as the new strategy for America’s human space exploration, recognising Marco’s key role in it. In 20••••18 he has been an Italian Space Agency (ASI) Associate in the Unit of the Technical Advisors to the President, appointed as the ASI technical contact point with the NASA HQ in the NASA-ASI feasibility study for the Italian participation in the NASA\'s ARM Program (Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission, ARRM, phase). Marco is part of the Aspen Junior Fellows Alumni at Aspen Institute Italia, and was featured on the May 2014 issue of Popular Science. Awarded a certificate of completion for the Senior Executives in National and International Security Program, 6/2021, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Executive Education.