Rob Strain | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | B.S. Western Michigan University |
| Occupation | Former Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Current President of Ball Aerospace & Technologies |
Robert D. "Rob" Strain is the former Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Strain held that post from August 4, 2008, through March 5, 2012. [1] Strain announced in January 2012 that he will retire from NASA and return to private industry.
Prior to joining NASA, Strain was the head of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD. [2] Strain joined APL in 2004 as assistant Space Department head for operations. The following year, he was named associate department head and then became the department's managing executive. [3]
He has more than 25 years of experience in the aerospace business, including executive positions at Orbital Sciences, where he led the company's Satellite and Electronic Sensors Divisions; and Fairchild Space and Defense Company, for which he served as chief financial officer and various other operational roles. He attended college at Western Michigan University and received his bachelor's degree in business administration. [4]
In March 2012, Strain joined Ball Aerospace & Technologies as Chief Operating Officer. He served this role for one year, after which he became the President of the company. He has served as President since March 2013. [5]
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.
Norman (Norm) Ralph Augustine is a U.S. aerospace businessman who served as United States Under Secretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977. Augustine served as chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. He was chairman of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee.
Michael Douglas Griffin is an American physicist and aerospace engineer who served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as Deputy of Technology for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and as Administrator of NASA from April 13, 2005, to January 20, 2009. As NASA Administrator Griffin oversaw such areas as the future of human spaceflight, the fate of the Hubble telescope and NASA's role in understanding climate change. In April 2009 Griffin, who has an academic background, was named eminent scholar and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and employs 8,000 people (2022). The lab serves as a technical resource for the Department of Defense, NASA, and other government agencies. APL has developed numerous systems and technologies in the areas of air and missile defense, surface and undersea naval warfare, computer security, and space science and spacecraft construction. While APL provides research and engineering services to the government, it is not a traditional defense contractor, as it is a UARC and a division of Johns Hopkins University. APL is a scientific and engineering research and development division, rather than an academic division, of Johns Hopkins.
The Van Allen Probes (VAP), formerly known as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), were two robotic spacecraft that were used to study the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. NASA conducted the Van Allen Probes mission as part of the Living With a Star program. Understanding the radiation belt environment and its variability has practical applications in the areas of spacecraft operations, spacecraft system design, mission planning and astronaut safety. The probes were launched on 30 August 2012 and operated for seven years. Both spacecraft were deactivated in 2019 when they ran out of fuel. They are expected to deorbit during the 2030s.
Michael Ryschkewitsch is the former Space Exploration Sector Head at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He formerly served as the Chief Engineer of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Goddard Space Flight Center is NASA's first, and oldest, space center. It is named after Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry. Throughout its history, the center has managed, developed, and operated many notable missions, including the Cosmic Background Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Stamatios (Tom) M. Krimigis is a Greek-American scientist in space exploration. He has contributed to many of the United States' unmanned space exploration programs of the Solar System and beyond. He has contributed to exploration missions to almost every planet of the Solar System. In 1999, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 8323 Krimigis in his honor.
Robert M. Lightfoot Jr. is former Acting Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), serving from January 20, 2017 until April 23, 2018. Succeeding Charles Bolden, Lightfoot became the space agency's acting Associate Administrator on March 5, 2012. That job became permanent on September 25, 2012. He had previously served as the eleventh Director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, from March 2009 until his promotion in March 2012. On March 12, 2018 he announced his retirement from NASA effective April 30, 2018.
Robert David Braun is an American aerospace engineer and academic. He has served as the dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, the David and Andrew Lewis Professor of Space Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the NASA Chief Technologist. Currently, Dr. Braun is the Space Sector Head at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL).
Frederick Stucky Billig was a pioneer in the development of scramjet propulsion.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best practices and expertise, and promoting the growth of the industry worldwide. Issues that the Commercial Spaceflight Federation work on include, but are not limited to, airspace issues, FAA regulations and permits, industry safety standards, public outreach, and public advocacy for the commercial space sector.
Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Dragonfly is a planned spacecraft and NASA mission, which will send a robotic rotorcraft to the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. It would be the first aircraft on Titan and is intended to make the first powered and fully controlled atmospheric flight on any moon, with the intention of studying prebiotic chemistry and extraterrestrial habitability. It will then use its vertical takeoffs and landings (VTOL) capability to move between exploration sites.
Robert F. Cahalan is Emeritus Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and previous Chief of the Laboratory for Climate and Radiation (2003–2013), Project Scientist of the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE), and President of the International Radiation Commission (IRC) of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics during 2008–2012. His interests include climate change, energy balance, remote sensing, and solar radiation.
Robert E. "Rob" Meyerson is an American aerospace engineer and executive known for his role in the development of reusable rocket launch systems.
Nicola J. Fox is the Director of the NASA Heliophysics Science Division. She was the lead scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, and served as the Science and Operations Coordinator for the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics Science Initiative.
Ralph D. Lorenz is a planetary scientist and engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. whose research focuses on understanding surfaces, atmospheres, and their interactions on planetary bodies, especially Titan, Venus, Mars, and Earth. He currently serves as Mission Architect of Dragonfly, NASA's fourth selected New Frontiers mission, and as participating scientist on Akatsuki and InSight. He is a Co-Investigator on the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover, responsible for interpreting data from its microphone. He leads the Venus Atmospheric Structure Investigation on the DAVINCI+ Discovery mission to Venus. He is the recipient of the 2020 International Planetary Probe Workshop (IPPW) Al Seiff memorial award.
Ralph D. Semmel is an American engineer and computer scientist. He became the eighth director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland on July 1, 2010.
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