[ad_1]
JPL director Michael Watkins announced on Monday that he would be stepping down as director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to resume his academic and research career at Caltech as a professor of aerospace and geophysics. His last day as director of JPL will be August 20. JPL is a federally funded, Caltech-operated research and development center for NASA.
“There is no place in the world like JPL. It has truly been the joy of my life to devote nearly three decades to JPL, and spending the last five years running the lab is the greatest honor, ”Watkins said in his announcement Monday to JPL’s 6,000 employees. “Above all, I cherish my interactions with the amazing people who make JPL what it is and who dedicate their lives to mission success after mission success.”
Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum joined the announcement and thanked Watkins for his leadership as director. “Since 2015, Mike has led JPL with consummate skill and determined dedication, working closely with NASA to ensure the continuation of JPL’s tradition of setting new scientific and technical milestones and captivating the world with revolutionary missions, ”Rosenbaum wrote to faculty and staff. “Mike helped usher in a new era of exploration that deepened our understanding of the universe and our place in it.”
Under Watkins’ tenure as director, JPL launched and operated several new missions for NASA, including the ECOSTRESS, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, GRACE Follow-On and Sentinel 6 Michael Freilich ground missions. Planetary missions include ongoing operations from Juno to Jupiter, as well as the launches and landings of the InSight mission and the Perseverance rover on Mars. Watkins has also guided future missions in development, including the Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s frozen Europa moon, the Mars Sample Return campaign, and the VERITAS mission to Venus.
Watkins, an engineer and scientist, worked at JPL for 22 years before becoming its director. He was the Chief Scientist of the Engineering and Science Branch of the Laboratory, Director of the Science Division of JPL, and Director of its Navigation and Mission Design Section. He served as the ground operations development mission leader for the Mars Science Laboratory mission, which sent the Curiosity rover to Mars. He also pioneered the concept of the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On missions, which use a pair of Earth-orbiting satellites to perform detailed measurements of the Earth’s gravity field.
[ad_2]
Source link