Salim Mehmud | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Pakistani |
Citizenship | Pakistani |
Alma mater | University of Punjab Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
Known for | Pakistan's Space Program and missile technology |
Awards | Sitara-e-Imtiaz (1990) French Medal for Aeronautics (1989) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Nuclear Engineering |
Institutions | Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO) Ministry of Communications of Pakistan (MCP) Argonne National Laboratory |
Doctoral advisor | Dr. William "Bill" Nelson |
Dr. Salim Mehmud, also known as Salim Mehmood, is a Pakistani rocket scientist and a nuclear engineer. Mehmud worked in the Apollo Program for NASA. He is the former chairman of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO). He has served as chief scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organization. Currently, he is the chief Scientific and Technological Advisor at the Ministry of Communications of Pakistan.
Mehmud took his BSc in Physics and a BA in Mathematics in 1955 from the Punjab University. The same year, he was admitted at the Punjab University's Graduate Program, and continued his research in Physics. He graduated and received his MSc in Physics and Electronics from Punjab University in 1957. The same year, he joined Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as Engineer Officer (EO) and served in Nuclear Engineering Division. However, he was awarded a scholarship by former chairman of PAEC Nazir Ahmad to continue his higher studies, and travelled to United States.
There, he attended North Carolina State University where he received his double MSc in Physics and MS in Electrical engineering in 1959. The same year, he began his post-graduate research work at Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education which he did until 1961.[ citation needed ] In 1964, he studied Nuclear engineering with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), also at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the Atoms for Peace Program [ citation needed ] In 1961, he took his MSc in Nuclear engineering, followed by PhD in Nuclear engineering from Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. William "Bill" Nelson in 1964.
While studying at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, his mentor Dr. Bill Nelson has called him one of his brightest and finest students in his doctoral teaching experience. His doctoral dissertation covered a vast amount of study in the field of Nuclear electric rocket.
Mehmud who was working at an Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a nuclear engineer was asked by Dr. Ishrat Hussain Usmani to go to Pakistani Embassy at the Washington, D.C., and met with Professor Abdus Salam. He along with fellow nuclear engineer Tariq Mustafa arrived at the Pakistani Embassy at Washington, D.C. After the formal conversation, Professor Salam and the engineers went to a local restaurant where the engineers was personally asked by Professor Abdus Salam to join NASA.
According to his interview, Mehmud expressed his concern over joining NASA and clearly notified Abdus Salam about his willingness to work in Pakistan's nuclear industry. However, with Salam's insistence, Mehmud and Mustafa visited NASA's headquarter and examined the American advances in rocket technology. The rocket science was found to be more challenging than it seems, according to Mehmud. After his visit to NASA, Mehmud and Mustafa decided to join NASA to study and trained in the field of rocket science.
Mehmud and Mustafa were assigned to conduct research in space and rocket technology. They, at first, declined the Salam's offer and vowed to work in a Pakistan's nuclear program, according to the interview given by CNBC Pakistan. However, after Abdus Salam's insistence, Mehmud and Mustafa visited the Goddard Space Flight Center. After the visit, Mustafa and Mehmud agreed to work for NASA. Mehmud and Mustafa arrived at Greenbelt, Maryland on a Douglas DC-6. Mehmud and Mustafa joined NASA in 1961. He was trained at the Goddard Space Center in rocket technology. He was one of the earliest pioneers of Nike-Cajun and Judi-Dart, a solid fuel propellent based rocket. He closely collaborated with NASA scientists and engineers in the development of solid fuel sounding rockets during the 1960s.
Mehmud joined SUPARCO in 1961 on the request of Abdus Salam. He was immediately transferred in SUPARCO's rocket fabrication laboratory. Mehmud was one of the distinguished member of SUPARCO's team who launched the Satellite Launch Vehicle technology based-Rehbar-I under the direction of Air Cdre. dr. Wladysław Józef Marian Turowicz. He then was sent back to NASA where he specialised in satellite and rocket technology. He then travelled with Air Cdre. Wladyslaw Turowicz to the United States where both had studied and conduct research in space and rocket technology. Mehmud came back to Pakistan where he carried out his research in rocket science and satellite launch vehicles under the supervision of Wladyslaw Turowicz. Along with Turowicz, he sat the Sonmiani facility and was the responsible for installing the Launch pads and computer facility at the Sonmiani center.
On 15 December 1980, with the support of PAEC Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan, President of Pakistan General Zia appointed Salim Mehmud as chief executive officer of SUPARCO and asked him to submit necessary recommendations for up-gradation of SUPARCO to the status of a full-fledged Commission.
In 1980, he was made the chairman of SUPARCO with the support of PAEC chairman Munir Ahmad Khan. He successfully convinced General Zia to set up funds for SUPARCO. Zia who was a strong advocate for the space program, allowed SUPARCO to developed the indigenous satellite capabilities. During the 1980s, he started the Hatf Missile Program and was the project director of the Missile program. He was the principal figure and scientist in Hatf missile program and was the brain behind the indigenous missile development. As a profession, Mehmud is a nuclear engineer, and designed the missile in a complex model that the rocket can carry approximately up to 500 kg HEU fissile material. It was his leadership that in 1989, 23 March, on the Republic Day of Pakistan, SUPARCO, along with Engineering Research Laboratories, publicly tested the Hatf Missile.
The Hatf-I, the first derivative, was designed as a highly mobile, tactical system. The missiles are said to have been derived from the second-stage of the French Eridan missile system. Due to difficulty in acquiring the technology needed in satellite development in the 1980s, the first derivative of Hatf missile is designed with zero or no satellite guidance. Dr. Mehmud's team also designed the missile that it can be considered as an artillery rocket. It is ground mobile and can be launched from a transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles.
In 1984, Salim Mehmud quickly launched the Badr satellite program. The development and the construction of Badr-1, Pakistan's first domestically-built digital communication satellite, was started. A small team of SUPARCO scientists and engineers who had studied and trained in University of Surrey were the part of the university's UO-9, UO-11 and UO-22 hamsat miniature satellite development and program, began the development of the satellite. Mehmud, then briefed the General Zia and suggested to launch the satellite from Pakistani Satellite Launch Vehicle. However, having found difficulties in SLV-required technology, the idea of Pakistani SLV was postponed and later was cancelled. Mehmud retired from SUPARCO in 1989 as a chief scientist and was transferred in DESTO. In 1990, Badr-1 was finally launched via Long March 2E rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
Mehmud has been a vocal supporter of rocket science and technology in Pakistan. He, along with other scientists, has raised his voice in different occasion for Pakistan's space program as well as a Pakistan's satellite launch vehicle project. His efforts were involved in Pakistan's pursuit for peaceful use of satellite technology and has been a strong supporter of science in Pakistan.
Mehmud's profile has been kept in secrecy but it is known that he has work in Pakistan's aerospace weapon development program agency, DESTO. It is unknown whether how long did he stay there and when was he took his retirement from the agency. However, it is known that he has played a "father-like" role in the establishment of the Sonmiani and Tilla spaceports and have been a scientist behind the Pakistan's solid-fuel rocket firing program during the 1960s.
Along with other Pakistani scientists, Mehmud's profile and credits have been kept in high level of ambiguity. Mehmud's credit and work, such as other noted Pakistani scientists, have kept lower than Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Currently, he has been retired from Pakistan's strategic program and remained untouch to the other Pakistan's classified program. As of 2009, he is the chief Scientific and Technological Advisor at the Ministry of Communications of Pakistan.
Mohammad Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. He was the first Pakistani and the first scientist from an Islamic country to receive a Nobel Prize and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize, after Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976. Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of the Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. Producing fissile material was pivotal to the Kahuta Project's success and thus to Pakistan obtaining the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon by the end of 1984.
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Badr-1 was the first artificial and the first digital communications satellite launched by Pakistan's national space authority — the SUPARCO — in 1990. The Badr-1 was Pakistan's first indigenously developed and manufactured digital communications and an experimental artificial satellite which was launched into low Earth orbit by Pakistan on 16 July 1990, through a Chinese carrier rocket. The launch ushered new military, technological, and scientific developments in Pakistan and also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Originally planned to be launched from the United States in 1986, the Challenger disaster further delayed the launch of the satellite which changed the plan. After the People's Republic of China offered Pakistan to use its facility, the Badr-1 was finally launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in 1990 on Long March 2E. Badr-1 travelled at 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h), taking 96.3 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at the 145 to 435 MHz bands which were operated by Pakistan Amateur Radio Society (PARS). The Badr-1 successfully completed its designed life, and a new satellite was proposed to be developed.
Samar Mubarakmand is a Pakistani nuclear physicist known for his research in gamma spectroscopy and experimental development of the Charged Particle Accelerator at the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (PINSTECH).
The Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, commonly referred to as SUPARCO, is the national space agency of Pakistan.
Rehbar is a series of sounding rockets launched into the upper atmosphere by Pakistan's Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO). Rehbar-I was the first rocket launched by SUPARCO, on 7 June 1962. Rehbar-I was a two-staged solid fuel rocket.
The Chronology of Pakistan's rocket tests entails the series of sounding rocket launches conducted by the Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) aimed at advancing Pakistan's space program. These launches were instrumental in developing high-altitude rockets, fostering scientific exploration, and providing invaluable data for research in physics and atmospheric sciences.
The Badr-B was the second spacecraft and the first Earth observation satellite launched into Sun-synchronous orbit on 10 December 2001 at 09:15 by SUPARCO — Pakistan's national space agency. Badr-B was a microsatellite, weighing approximately 70 kg, and contained a computerized system to conduct studies on gravity gradients. Badr-B was a research satellite to explore the upper atmosphere and the near space, carrying a large array of instruments for geophysical research.
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For other people with the same or similar name, see Abdul Majid
Air Commodore Władysław Józef Marian Turowicz, usually referred to as W. J. M. Turowicz, was a Polish-Pakistani aviator, military scientist and aeronautical engineer.
Project-706, also known as Project-786 was the codename of a research and development program to develop Pakistan's first nuclear weapons. The program was initiated by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974 in response to the Indian nuclear tests conducted in May 1974. During the course of this program, Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers developed the requisite nuclear infrastructure and gained expertise in the extraction, refining, processing and handling of fissile material with the ultimate goal of designing a nuclear device. These objectives were achieved by the early 1980s with the first successful cold test of a Pakistani nuclear device in 1983. The two institutions responsible for the execution of the program were the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the Kahuta Research Laboratories, led by Munir Ahmed Khan and Abdul Qadeer Khan respectively. In 1976 an organization called Special Development Works (SDW) was created within the Pakistan Army, directly under the Chief of the Army Staff (Pakistan) (COAS). This organization worked closely with PAEC and KRL to secretly prepare the nuclear test sites in Baluchistan and other required civil infrastructure.
The International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics and Contemporary Needs (INSC), was founded by Nobel laureate in Physics Dr. Abdus Salam (then-Science Advisor to the Prime minister) to promote physics and scientific research activities in Pakistan. Having suggested by Professor Abdus Salam to the Government of Pakistan, it was established by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan.
Dr. Tariq Mustafa is a Pakistani mechanical engineer with a first class honors degree from London University specializing in nuclear and space technology. He led the establishment of Pakistan's Space and Rocket Technology Program and subsequently, served in high ranking positions in the Government of Pakistan as Federal Secretary of the Ministries of Defense Production, Science and Technology, Public Sector Industry, Petroleum and Natural Resources and Privatization. He is the founder and current Chairperson of Pakistan's National Paralympics Committee (PNPC), President of the South Asian Paralympics Committee and the Vice President of the Asian Paralympic Committee. His lifelong interests are reason, revelation and the future of humanity. He has been active in discourse about science and religion and is the author of The Case for God - Based on Reason and Evidence, not Groundless Faith. In September 2015, he has been appointed as a member of the Governing Council of the Institute for Religion in the Age of Science (IRAS).
Dr. Athar Ali was a Pakistani system engineer and a rocket scientist who was murdered in Karachi on 4 October 2003. He was an expert in missile technology and was the senior scientist at the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) during the time of the development of Shaheen missile guidance system. SUPARCO is a Pakistani governmental agency. His death led to the mass demonstration in a Shiite community in Karachi.
The Hatf Program was the classified program by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Pakistan for the comprehensive research and the development of guided missiles. Initiatives began in 1986–87 that also received support from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in a direct response to India's equivalent program in 1989.