Jet Propulsion Laboratory
After graduation Casani worked at the Rome Air Development Center in New York state. In 1956 he moved to Southern California, where he lived in his fraternity's house at the University of Southern California while looking for work. He was offered a position at North American Aviation working its Navaho missile project, but Jack James convinced him to join the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he worked on the guidance system for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's Jupiter missile until the Sputnik crisis resulted in a change of priorities. [2]
From 1958 to 1959, Casani was a payload engineer working on Pioneer 3 and Pioneer 4. [3] These spacecraft were so small that he carried them in a suitcase to the University of Iowa to have their instruments calibrated. [2] He worked as a spacecraft systems engineer on Ranger 1 and Ranger 2 from 1959 to 1962, and then on the Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 Mars probes from 1962 to 1965. He became the Chief Engineer of the Mariner Mars project in 1965, Deputy Spacecraft System Manager in 1966, Spacecraft System Manager in 1969, and Project Manager in 1970. [3] Early missions to Mars were dogged by failures, which a reporter attributed to the Great Galactic Ghoul. [2] [4] After a hiatus, the Ghoul returned on Mariner 7, and Casani received drawing and paintings of the Ghoul. [2]
Casani served as project manager for the Voyager program from 1975 to 1977, and then the Galileo from 1977 to 1988. [3] This project was troubled by multiple delays and changes in configuration due to uncertainty as to how it should be launched on its way to Jupiter, and delays caused by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. It was finally launched by the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1989, and reached Jupiter by a roundabout route in 1995. [5] It remained in orbit around Jupiter until 2003. [6] He became the Deputy Assistant Laboratory Director for Flight Projects in 1988, [7] and Assistant Laboratory Director for Flight Projects from in 1989. In 1994 he became Project Manager of the Cassini project. [3] He became Chief Engineer at JPL in 1994. [8]
Casani retired in 1999, but the retirement was a brief one; he was recalled two weeks later to work with the Johnson Space Center on a problem that could have caused the loss of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. He then headed up an internal JPL investigation of the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 probes, and was project manager for Project Prometheus until its termination in 2005. [2]
Galileo was an American robotic space program that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Galileo spacecraft consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989 by Space ShuttleAtlantis on the STS-34 mission, and arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. It launched the first probe into Jupiter, directly measuring its atmosphere. Despite suffering major antenna problems, Galileo achieved the first asteroid flyby, of 951 Gaspra, and discovered the first asteroid moon, Dactyl, around 243 Ida. In 1994, Galileo observed Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9's collision with Jupiter.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the city of La Cañada Flintridge in California, United States.
The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle.
In orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense.
Pluto Kuiper Express was an interplanetary space probe that was proposed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists and engineers and under development by NASA. The spacecraft was intended to be launched to study Pluto and its moon Charon, along with one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). The proposal was the third of its kind, after the Pluto 350 and a proposal to send a Mariner Mark II spacecraft to Pluto.
Peter C. Theisinger is the director of the Engineering and Science Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and was the project manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission and later project manager for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory mission.
William Hayward Pickering was a New Zealand-born rocket scientist who headed Pasadena, California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 22 years, retiring in 1976. He was a senior NASA luminary and pioneered the exploration of space. Pickering was also a founding member of the United States National Academy of Engineering.
Mariner Mark II was NASA's planned family of unmanned spacecraft for the exploration of the outer Solar System that were to be developed and operated by JPL between 1980 through the year 2010.
Claudia Joan Alexander was a Canadian-born American research scientist specializing in geophysics and planetary science. She worked for the United States Geological Survey and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was the last project manager of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter and until the time of her death had served as project manager and scientist of NASA's role in the European-led Rosetta mission to study Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Raymond L. Heacock was an American engineer who spent his career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he worked on the Ranger program in the 1960s and on the Voyager program in the 1970s and 1980s. A Caltech engineering graduate, he was the winner of the James Watt International Medal for 1979.
Randii Ray Wessen is an American astronautics systems engineer specifically involved in planetary exploration, experimental economist, and writer. Dr. Wessen has been an employee of the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1984. He is currently the A-Team Lead Study Architect for JPL's Innovation Foundry. On the side, Wessen works with Dr. David Porter of Chapman University in the field of Experimental Economics, where they are designing a system to help allocate resources for building instruments on robotic deep space planetary spacecraft. This proposed system will build on the success of the Cassini Resource Exchange and be applied to NASA's Outer Planet Flagship Missions.
Charles Kohlhase worked for forty years at NASA/JPL leading the design of several robotic deep-space planetary missions. He is also an author, game developer and lecturer.
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.
Jack Norval James was a US rocket engineer who worked for over 35 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA. His work as a Project Manager for NASA's Mariner program in the 1960s included the first planetary flyby and first photographs by a space probe of Mars. He received commendations for his work from several US Presidents, and his awards include the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1965) and the Stuart Ballantine Medal (1967).
Robert J. "Bob" Parks was a US aerospace engineer and pioneer in the space program where he was intricately involved and/or directed for some of the most historic and important U.S. unmanned space missions. Over a 40-year tenure at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL/NASA), located in Pasadena, California, Parks’ impact was essential to helping the United States lead the world in space exploration. He served as Guidance Engineer for Explorer 1, the first successfully launched satellite by the United States. He directed the initial flyby missions to the Moon, the first soft landing on the moon, the world's first successful mission to another planet and initial missions to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus. Parks concluded his career as Deputy Director of the JPL/NASA and retired in 1987. Some of the awards he received for his work include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1967), the Stuart Ballantine Medal (1967), the Goddard Astronautics Award (1980) and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award in 1982.
Robert Samuel Kraemer was an American aerospace engineer who served as Director of Planetary Programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1971 to 1976.
Shuttle-Centaur was a version of the Centaur upper stage rocket designed to be carried aloft inside the Space Shuttle and used to launch satellites into high Earth orbits or probes into deep space. Two variants were developed: Centaur G-Prime, which was planned to launch the Galileo and Ulysses robotic probes to Jupiter, and Centaur G, a shortened version planned for use with United States Department of Defense Milstar satellites and the Magellan Venus probe. The powerful Centaur upper stage allowed for heavier deep space probes, and for them to reach Jupiter sooner, prolonging the operational life of the spacecraft. However, neither variant ever flew on a Shuttle. Support for the project came from the United States Air Force (USAF) and the National Reconnaissance Office, which asserted that its classified satellites required the power of Centaur. The USAF agreed to pay half the design and development costs of Centaur G, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) paid the other half.
Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989 by Space ShuttleAtlantis. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet.
