After 25 years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Richard Kornfeld is returning to his alma mater. Starting in September, he will take over the operational management of ETH Zurich Space, bringing extensive experience of space missions to his new role.
In brief
- Starting 1 September 2025, Richard Kornfeld is taking over the operational management of ETH Zurich Space, the center for space research and teaching at ETH.
- As a systems engineer and mission and section manager, the former ETH student was involved in several successful missions at NASA, including to Mars.
- Together with Thomas Zurbuchen, Kornfeld wants to make ETH one of the leading institutions for space research, teaching and entrepreneuship.
The tension was palpable in the NASA control room in Pasadena, California, on the evening of 25 May 2008. The silence was punctuated from time to time by cheers and applause marking the successful completion of key steps, such as the deployment of the landing parachute. NASA described the phase in which the Phoenix space probe landed on Mars fully autonomously as "seven minutes of terror" - even in advance of that momentous evening. After all, even a single minor fault could have put the whole mission in jeopardy.
At 4.53 p.m. local time, Kornfeld's voice came over the loudspeaker: "Touchdown signal detected." Cheers broke out, and people in the room fell into each other's arms. After years of preparatory work, Phoenix had successfully landed on the surface of Mars. Kornfeld was responsible for communication between the probe and the control centre during the landing process - a highly complex undertaking. As lead systems engineer and mission and section manager, he was also involved in numerous other NASA missions in addition to Phoenix.
Zurich-born Kornfeld is now returning from California to his home country of Switzerland: starting 1 September 2025, he is taking over the operational management of ETH Zurich Space, the centre for space research and teaching at ETH.
Giving back to his alma mater
In his new role, Kornfeld will work closely with Thomas Zurbuchen, who will continue to handle the centre's overall management. "Richard was one of the leading engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I'm confident that his expertise and experience will help us take space research and teaching to a new level both at ETH and in Switzerland as a whole," says Zurbuchen, who is a professor at ETH. Zurbuchen and Kornfeld want to make ETH Zurich one of the leading universities for space research, teaching and entrepreneurship in Europe.
"I have no doubt that Switzerland has all the necessary ingredients to achieve success in the space sector."Richard Kornfeld
Kornfeld is keen to emphasise that his move to ETH Zurich is in no way related to the planned cuts at NASA and was not influenced by political considerations. "My decision to return to ETH was primarily guided by my desire to give something back to my alma mater and to continue developing the university's space activities in collaboration with Thomas Zurbuchen. I have no doubt that Switzerland has all the necessary ingredients to achieve success in the space sector," he explains. Indeed, discussions regarding a move to Zurich were already underway last year.
From Zurich to Mars - and back
Kornfeld grew up in Zurich's Enge neighbourhood and studied Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich. In 1994, an exchange programme took him to the USA, where in 1996 he began a doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kornfeld joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1999, starting a 25-year career that would see him promoted to deputy chief engineer of the Systems Engineering division and ultimately to section manager of more than 240 systems engineers. During that time, he switched back and forth between various space missions, technology development projects and managerial roles.
For example, for the two Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which both landed on the red planet in 2004, Kornfeld was part of the team responsible for the vehicles' smooth operations on the Martian surface. During the Curiosity rover mission, which touched down on Mars in 2012, the former ETH student was among those responsible for the entry and landing system. "We tested the landing for months and prepared ourselves for every possible scenario. In the end, everything went well," he recalls.
In addition to his various roles on Mars projects, Kornfeld took on a leading role on the GRACE Follow-on mission, measuring Earth's surface mass and water changes, and also participated in the recently launched Europa Clipper mission, exploring Jupiter's moon Europa.
New role at ETH Zurich
As Managing Director of ETH Zurich Space, the former NASA engineer will in the future support the Director, Thomas Zurbuchen, with the centre's operational management and strategic orientation. In this role, Kornfeld will lead a Project Hub and an Innovation Hub. The aim of these two newly founded instruments is to put more Swiss experiments and technologies into space and bring new impetus to the space sector in Switzerland.
"The Project Hub supports research groups from ETH and other institutions with the implementation of space projects at ESA, NASA or other partners - thanks to help from experienced colleagues such as Richard Kornfeld who already have experience with space missions," explains Zurbuchen. One example of these projects is the three-legged ETH robot known as LunarLeaper . As part of a small mission by the European Space Agency (ESA), this robot is intended to investigate whether there are tunnels that were formed by lava flows billions of years ago beneath the Marius Hills on the Moon.
The Innovation Hub is about bringing technologies from ETH into the space industry quickly. ETH Zurich is consciously approaching this objective with a willingness to take risks and an eagerness for experimentation. The aim is also to examine unconventional ideas, such as a swarm of sensor balls for seismic measurements on the Moon or innovative structures for satellites. To this end, Zurbuchen and Kornfeld want to bring industry partners together with financial backers.
Richard Kornfeld will also be engaged in teaching activities as part of the new ETH Master's in Space Systems, which has grown since it was launched last year and is becoming more international. Specifically, the second year group begin their studies in autumn and will include international students among their number for the first time, although Swiss students continue to make up the majority of this year's admitted class.
Although Kornfeld has already contributed to numerous Mars missions and concepts for Moon missions, he won't be able to escape the pull of the two celestial bodies at ETH altogether. "Perhaps we'll see another ETH experiment on the Moon or Mars in the next few years - I very much would like that."
