Cathy Olkin | |
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| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Southwest Research Institute |
| Doctoral advisor | James L. Elliot |
| Website | www |
Cathy Olkin is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, focusing on the outer Solar System. She is deputy principal investigator for NASA's Lucy mission examining the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, [1] which launched in 2021 and will fly past its targets between 2025 and 2033. [2]
Olkin was born and raised in Michigan. As a child, Olkin considered a variety of careers in science and academia, including geologist, paleontologist, archaeologist, and doctor. [3]
In college, she was pre-med before switching to engineering, [3] earning a B.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1988, then an M.S., also in Aeronautics and Astronautics, from Stanford University in 1989. Olkin then returned to MIT where she earned a Ph.D. in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science in 1996. [4] Her dissertation advisor was James L. Elliot. [5]
Olkin was a deputy project scientist on NASA's New Horizons team responsible for the July 2015 flyby of Pluto [3] [6] and became co-principal investigator for New Horizons' Ralph instrument, a color camera and near-infrared imaging spectrometer. [7] [8]
She is deputy principal investigator for NASA's Lucy mission examining the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, [1] which launched in 2021 and will fly past its targets between 2025 and 2033. [2]
Olkin's scientific research has earned an h-index of 24. [9] She has published over 400 papers, with more than 2,000 citations. [9]
She is also the author of the title story "All These Wonders" in The Moth radio show's 20th anniversary collection, The Moth Presents: All These Wonders. True Stories About Facing the Unknown ; [10] reviewing the collection in The New York Times . Michiko Kakutani described Olkin's contribution as "a thrilling account...of last-minute emergency repairs made to the New Horizons spacecraft as it traveled three billion miles to get a close-up of Pluto." [11]
Olkin also engages in public outreach. [12] In 2015, Olkin shared discoveries from her work with NASA's New Horizons mission at a TEDxDetroit talk. [13]
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
Neptune trojans are bodies that orbit the Sun near one of the stable Lagrangian points of Neptune, similar to the trojans of other planets. They therefore have approximately the same orbital period as Neptune and follow roughly the same orbital path. Twenty-eight Neptune trojans are currently known, of which 24 orbit near the Sun–Neptune L4 Lagrangian point 60° ahead of Neptune and four orbit near Neptune's L5 region 60° behind Neptune. The Neptune trojans are termed 'trojans' by analogy with the Jupiter trojans.
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of furthering the understanding of the Solar System. The program selects medium-class missions which can provide high science returns.
132524 APL, provisional designation 2002 JF56, is a small background asteroid in the intermediate asteroid belt. It was discovered by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research in May 2002, and imaged by the New Horizons space probe on its flyby in June 2006, when it was passing through the asteroid belt. The stony S-type asteroid measures approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) in diameter.
3548 Eurybates is a carbonaceous Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp and the parent body of the Eurybates family, approximately 68 kilometers in diameter. It is a target to be visited by the Lucy mission in August 2027. Discovered during the second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey in 1973, it was later named after Eurybates from Greek mythology. This C-type asteroid is among the 60 largest known Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 8.7 hours. Eurybates has one kilometer-sized satellite, named Queta, that was discovered in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in September 2018.
The Jupiter Magnetospheric Orbiter is a cancelled space probe proposed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), to undertake detailed in situ studies of the magnetosphere of Jupiter as a template for an astrophysical magnetised disk.
The exploration of Pluto began with the arrival of the New Horizons probe in July 2015, though proposals for such a mission had been studied for many decades. There are no plans as yet for a follow-up mission, though follow-up concepts have been studied.
The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.
Adriana C. Ocampo Uria is a Colombian planetary geologist and a Science Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. In 1970, Ocampo emigrated to California and completed her Master in Sciences at California State University, Northridge and finished her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. During high school and graduate studies she worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she serves as the science coordinator for many planetary missions.
Dr. Colleen Hartman is currently the Board Director for the Space Studies Board as well as the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington D.C. She was the deputy center director for Science, Operations and Performance of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and most recently, was the Director of the Science and Exploration Directorate. Previously she was acting Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), Deputy AA of SMD and presidential management intern, served as a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and served as deputy division director for technology at NASA Headquarters.
Alice Bowman is the Mission Operations Manager for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. She is the first woman to fill that role at the Applied Physics Laboratory, taking on the position in 2002 specifically for the duration of the three billion-mile space journey.
Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids, visiting two main belt asteroids as well as six Jupiter trojans, asteroids which share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. All target encounters will be flyby encounters. The Lucy spacecraft is the centerpiece of a US$981 million mission.
21900 Orus is a Jupiter trojan asteroid from the Greek camp, approximately 53 kilometers in diameter, and a target of the Lucy mission to be visited in November 2028. It is among the 100 largest Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 13.5 hours. It was discovered on 9 November 1999, by Japanese amateur astronomer Takao Kobayashi at his private Ōizumi Observatory in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, and later named Orus after a slain Achaean warrior from the Iliad.
Lisa Hardaway (1966–2017) was an American aerospace engineer and program manager for an instrument on the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto and Beyond. Among her awards, she was named Engineer of the Year for 2015–2016 by the Colorado American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Henry B. Throop, is an American astronomer and planetary scientist who specializes in the dynamics of rings and dust in the outer solar system. Throop is a member of the science team for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and has been involved with NASA missions throughout the solar system. Throop lives in Washington, DC where he runs NASA's science programs in the outer solar system. He has done extensive education and outreach around the world, having spent nearly a decade as an astronomer living in South Africa, India, and Mexico. The asteroid 193736 Henrythroop is named after him.
The Planetary Missions Program Office is a division of NASA headquartered at the Marshall Space Flight Center, formed by the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Succeeding the Discovery and New Frontiers Program Office, it was established in 2014 to manage the Discovery and New Frontiers programs of low and medium-cost missions by third-party institutions, and the Solar System Exploration program of NASA-led missions that focus on prioritized planetary science objectives. The Discovery and New Frontiers programs were established in 1992 and 2001 respectively, and have launched fourteen primary missions together, along with two missions launched under the administration of the Planetary Missions Program Office. The Solar System Exploration Program was established alongside the office, with three missions planned for launch under the new program.
Ralph is a science instrument aboard the robotic New Horizons spacecraft, which was launched in 2006. Ralph is a visible and infrared imager and spectrometer to provide maps of relevant astronomical targets based on data from that hardware. Ralph has two major subinstruments, LEISA and MVIC. MVIC stands for Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera and is a color imaging device, while LEISA originally stood for Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array and is an infrared imaging spectrometer for spaceflight. LEISA observes 250 discrete wavelengths of infrared light from 1.25 to 2.5 micrometers. MVIC is a pushbroom scanner type of design with seven channels, including red, blue, near-infrared (NIR), and methane.
The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC) is a scientific instrument aboard the uncrewed New Horizons space probe that is designed to detect dust impacts in outer space. VBSDC is the first planetary science instrument to be built by students. The dust counter was launched in 2006, and named later that year after Venetia Burney, the young girl who originally named Pluto. The detector works when dust strikes films of polarized polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), which generates an electrical charge. The space dust is then detected over the course of the New Horizons spacecraft flight out of the Solar System and past Pluto.
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is a telescope aboard the New Horizons spacecraft for imaging. LORRI has been used to image Jupiter, its moons, Pluto and its moons, and Arrokoth since its launch in 2006. LORRI is a reflecting telescope of Ritchey-Chrétien design, and it has a main mirror diameter of 208 mm across. LORRI has a narrow field of view, less than a third of a degree. Images are taken with a CCD capturing data with 1024 × 1024 pixels. LORRI is a telescopic panchromatic camera integrated with the New Horizons spacecraft, and it is one of seven major science instruments on the probe. LORRI does not have any moving parts and is pointed by moving the entire New Horizons spacecraft.
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