Space industry veteran Frederic C. Baker joins UNIO as CTO driving Europe’s first commercial satellite constellation for the mobility industry 

As a joint venture of Isar Aerospace, Reflex Aerospace, Mynaric and SES, UNIO is the only company combining the expertise of leading players from all core areas crucial to successful satellite communications.

Focus areas: Automotive and mobility industry as well as B2B and B2G communications.

Munich, June 12, 2023 – Frederic C. Baker has been appointed the new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the European space start-up UNIO. He will lead the architecture build-out of the company’s ground-breaking commercial satellite constellation focused on enabling new services and products in the automotive and broader mobility sectors. 

Baker boasts a 33-year career in the space industry in both the US and Europe having served key roles with organizations as diverse as the European Space Agency, the US space and defence company Ball Aerospace, and the European satellite constellation project LeoSat. Most recently, Baker served with ClearSpace, a Swiss–based space debris removal and in-orbit servicing scale-up. 

“Frederic’s appointment completes UNIO’s core leadership team. We now gear up our efforts into delivering on our ambitious goals, including getting our first Proof-of-Concept satellite into orbit by 2024, followed by a second client-sponsored multi-satellite mission in 2025.” - Katrin Bacic (UNIO CEO)

UNIO CEO Katrin Bacic stated “I am delighted to welcome a leader of Frederic’s standing in the space industry as CTO in our UNIO team. Throughout his career he has ‘been there and done it’ with regard to deep space tech – both government and commercial, startup and prime, in Europe, the United States, and beyond. That depth of expertise will make an enormous contribution to our mission of utilizing space to deliver high-speed connectivity to enable next-generation mobility. Frederic’s appointment completes UNIO’s core leadership team and allows us to now gear up our combined efforts to deliver on our ambitious goals, including getting our first Proof-of-Concept satellite into orbit by 2024. This will be followed by a second client-sponsored multi-satellite mission in 2025.” 

Fluent across multiple geographic, cultural, and technical landscapes, Baker’s career has straddled both the North American and European continents equally. As such, it is this ‘best of both worlds’ experience – combining the US entrepreneurial, can-do spirit with the richness of European diversity, creativity, and cooperation – that will drive Baker towards delivering on his first stated task as CTO to build UNIO’s core development team and craft the company’s end-to-end service architecture by autumn 2023. 

UNIO CTO Frederic C. Baker added: “Since watching the moon landing as a boy, I dreamt of being an astronaut. But what I have spent my career focusing on maybe even more enriching: untapping the huge potential of bringing the benefit of space technologies to everyone’s lives. I believe no company is currently more committed to that approach than UNIO and its quest for ubiquitous, seamless, and secure dual-use connectivity globally for both commercial and government applications. As such, I am excited to be joining as CTO and contributing to what will. become the invincible connectivity backbone of Europe in space.” 

“At UNIO, we bring the benefit of space technologies to everyone’s life. I am excited to be joining as CTO and contribute to the invincible connectivity backbone of Europe in space.” - Frederic C. Baker (UNIO CTO)

After having studied aerospace engineering at the top-tier University of Colorado, Boulder (USA), Baker joined the European Space Agency in the 1990s and then moved into the private sector on both sides of the Atlantic, achieving senior roles with – among other leading space players – Ball Aerospace, Meggitt PLC, Deep Space Industries, and LeoSat. 

At UNIO, Frederic C. Baker is complementing the core leadership around CEO Katrin Bacic, who previously led the German activities of Telefónica’s investment and innovation arm Wayra, and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Sebastian Ströhl, who brings 15 years of experience working on the commercial side of space and satellite services. Building upon this leadership team, UNIO is architecting and operating Europe’s first commercial constellation of dual-use communications satellites with a focus on enabling new services and products in the automotive and broader mobility sectors.