Ane Aanesland is a physicist, entrepreneur, and pioneer in iodine-based space propulsion. Co-founder and CEO of ThrustMe, she spent nearly twenty years in top-level research, including as Research Director at CNRS and École Polytechnique. With ThrustMe, she turned that scientific expertise into developing and growing a deep-tech company at the forefront of the industrial space era. In 2020, ThrustMe made the world’s first successful demonstration of an iodine electric propulsion system in space, and their products are now the most produced and most used ion thruster in history. She was awarded the CNRS Innovation Medal in 2019 and was appointed Ambassador for the French government’s France 2030 space strategy in 2022.