Dr Claude Boniface

Dr Claude Boniface is a space weather research engineer at the French Space Agency CNES since October 2019. He contributes to WPs 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 with an allocation of 20% of full-time employment. From 2014 to 2019, he was a plasma propulsion specialist at CNES. He was in charge of the 5-kW plasma thruster development and qualification for new European Electric Propulsion (EP) Telecommunications Platforms. He also coordinated the French research group "Propulsion Plasma pour l' Espace", which involved several research laboratories specialized in all fields required for plasma thruster physics. Moreover, he managed technically EP R&T program activities (plasmic thruster and new thruster concepts, electric micro-propulsion, numerical modelling, plasma diagnostics) and the EP CNES's roadmap.  

From 2007 to 2014, he was a plasma fusion physicist at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). He worked in the field of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and belonged to the project team responsible of the ignition target design on Laser MegaJoule (LMJ) facility. His main research concerned the influence, in the framework of ICF and high energy density plasma physics, of the magnetic field and their coupling to electron transport and plasma dynamics.