UPDATE: The Washington Post ran this obituary on November 16, 2011.

John W. (Jack) Townsend, former Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and former President of Fairchild’s space division died of lung cancer on October 29. He was 87.

His family provided the following biography.

Townsend was a rocket and satellite pioneer. Starting in 1949, he served with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in the V-2, Aerobee, Viking and Vanguard upper air research programs. In 1958, as Assistant Director, he helped form the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Townsend was one of a three-man Presidential commission charged with negotiating the first peaceful uses of outer space programs with the Soviet Union. He was influential in creating the first meteorological, communications and earth viewing satellite systems. From 1968-1970, he was Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Science Services Agency, the predecessor agency to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). From 1970-1977 he was Associate Administrator of NOAA. Both were Presidential appointments. In 1975 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in developing meteorological polar and geostationary satellite systems. He was President of Fairchild Industries space division, and held senior executive positions at Fairchild, including Executive Vice President from 1977-1987. After the Challenger accident, he returned to NASA at the request of then Administrator James Fletcher and served essentially as general manager until the space shuttle safely returned to service. He retired in 1990 after almost three years as Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dr. Townsend chaired the National Research Council’s Space Application Board and led many influential studies for the National Academies and other organizations, including the seminal, Low-Altitude Wind Shear and Its Hazard to Aviation. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the Arthur S. Fleming award, NASA’s distinguished service award twice and also its outstanding leadership medal, the Edward A. Flinn award of the American Geophysical Union, the Navy Department Meritorious Civilian Service award, and other honors.

He was a WWII veteran and flew radar countermeasures in B-29s in the Pacific. He was a live steam railroader, an orchid hobbyist, sailor, and, for more than 65 years, a ham radio operator.

He is survived by his wife, JoAnn Clayton Townsend; his children, Bruce, Nancy and Megan Townsend; and three grandchildren.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more information, see our calendar or click the links below. The House and Senate both are in session this week.

During the Week

On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to vote on a bill, H.R. 2112, that combines three of the regular FY2012 appropriations bills: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD). It is referred to as a “minibus” appropriations measure because it has fewer than all 12 appropriations bills, which, when combined, is called an “omnibus.” The CJS bill includes NASA and NOAA; the T-HUD bill includes the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation. If the bill passes the Senate, it still must be considered by the House. The government is currently operating under a FY2012 CR that expires on November 18.

China will also be in the news this week. The Chinese have not officially announced a launch date for Shenzhou 8, but the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which has a payload aboard, said that the launch is scheduled for October 31 Central European Time (November 1 local time in China).

Whether or not that launch takes place this week, two House committees coincidentally have scheduled hearings on China-related issues. Though they may not necessarily directly involve space activities, they might be of interest to this readership. The House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) will hold two: “Efforts to Transfer America’s Leading Edge Science to China” on November 2, and “Congressional-Executive Commission on China: 2011 Annual Report” on November 3. Media reports last week stated that the Commission’s report asserts that China attempted to interfere with two U.S. satellites in 2007 and 2008. Separately, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on November 2 on the “China Democracy Promotion Act” to deny entry into the United States of certain members of the senior leadership of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and individuals who have committed humans right abuses there.

Monday-Tuesday, October 31-November 1

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Science Committee, NASA Headquarters, room 3H46
  • Monday, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
  • Tuesday, 8:30 am – 2:00 pm

Tuesday, November 1

• NAC Human Exploration and Operations Committee, NASA Headquarters, room 9H40, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
• NAC Information Technology Infrastructure Committee, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
• HASC hearing on Defense Industrial Base: Role of DOD, 2212 Rayburn, 3:00 pm (listed in National Journal’s Daybook, but not yet on the committee’s website)
• Women in Aerospace Awards Dinner, Ritz Carlton Pentagon City, Arlington, VA, 5:30 – 9:00 pm

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 1-2

• NAC Audit, Finance and Analysis Committee, NASA Headquarters, room 8D48
  • Tuesday, 2:00 – 5:15 pm
  • Wednesday, 9:00 – 9:55 am

Wednesday, November 2

• House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on American Science and China, 2172 Rayburn, 3:00 pm

Thursday, November 3

• Marshall Institute/Space Enterprise Council Seminar on Propulsion for the 21st Century, TechAmerica, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, North Building, Suite 600, Washington DC, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
• House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Congressional-Executive Commission on China: 2011 Annual Report, 2172 Rayburn, 10:00 am
• Mars Society and Planetary Society Capitol Hill Forum on NASA At A Turning Point, B-338 Rayburn, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
• Secure World Foundation Seminar on Russia’s Space Plans, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 3:00 – 5:00 pm

The meeting of the Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS) of the Science Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) scheduled for November 2-3 has been cancelled because of the unexpected death of PSS chairman Ron Greeley.

Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science division director, made the announcement in a special edition of the Planetary Exploration Newsletter (reproduced below). However, PSS will still make its report to the NAC Science Committee as scheduled on Monday morning, with PSS Vice Chairman Jim Bell filling in.

PLANETARY EXPLORATION NEWSLETTER – SPECIAL EDITION

Volume 5, Number 49 (October 29, 2011)

PEN Website: http://planetarynews.org

Editor: Mark V. Sykes

Co-Editors: Melissa Lane, Susan Benecchi

Email: pen_editor at psi.edu

o—————————SPECIAL EDITION—————————o

[NASA] PLANETARY SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING FOR NOVEMBER 2-3, 2011 IS

CANCELLED

>From Jim Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, and

Jonathan Rall, Executive Secretary, Planetary Science Subcommittee

Due to the unexpected and tragic loss of Ron Greeley, Chair of the

Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS), the PSS meeting scheduled for

November 2-3 at NASA Headquarters has been canceled. The meeting will

be rescheduled for a later date and notice of that new date will be

published in the Federal Register.

We apologize for any inconvenience due to these extraordinary

circumstances but felt that the meeting should be canceled since it

would likely conflict with Ron’s funeral or memorial service. We

anticipate that many in the planetary science community will pay their

respects to Ron, a pillar of planetary science, and celebrate his

incredible journey.

Prof. Ronald Greeley, a noted planetary geologist and chairman of the planetary science subcommittee (PSS) of the NASA Advisory Council, passed away on Thursday.

Greeley was notably absent from the “virtual” meeting of the PSS on Thursday and other participants clearly were unaware of what was transpiring. The meeting took place via telecon and WebEx. The other participants decided to proceed despite Greeley’s unexpected absence. News of his death came later.

Greeley was a professor of planetary geology at Arizona State University, which released this statement:

Ronald Greeley, a Regents’ Professor of Planetary Geology at Arizona State University who was involved in lunar and planetary studies since 1967 and who contributed significantly to our understanding of planetary bodies within our solar system, died Oct. 27, in Tempe. He was 72.

As the son of a military serviceman, Greeley moved around a great deal as child. As a result he saw many different geological landforms and it was no surprise that when he went to college, he majored in geology. Greeley earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Mississippi State University. After receiving his doctorate in 1966 at the University of Missouri in Rolla he worked for Standard Oil Company of California as a paleontologist.

Through military duty, he was assigned to NASA’s Ames Research Center in 1967 where he worked in a civilian capacity in preparation for the Apollo missions to the Moon. He stayed on at NASA to conduct research in planetary geology.

“I had been on sabbatical at NASA Ames Research Center working on the analysis of lunar samples, and I saw Ron and I saw potential,” recalls Carleton Moore, founding director of ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies. “When I got the opportunity, I hired him.”

Greeley began teaching at ASU in 1977 with a joint professorship in the department of geology and the Center for Meteorite Studies. He studied wind processes on Earth and other planets and conducted photogeological mapping of planets and satellites among other research projects. In 1986, Greeley left the Center for Meteorite Studies to serve as chair of the department of geology.

“It was exciting to have him here; he was a major step in advancing space at ASU. He was the first one that came that did missions and experiments on planetary bodies,” says Moore. “He was really the first person to reach out to the other planets. And then he hired Phil Christensen.”

“Ron Greeley was indisputably one of the founders of planetary science, and the influence he has had, both through his own work and through the students and colleagues that he guided and mentored, touches virtually all aspects of this field,” says Christensen, a Regents’ Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“Ron played a major role in my career,” says Christensen. “I came to ASU specifically to work with Ron after receiving my graduate degree, and I have remained at ASU for 30 years largely because of the remarkable environment that Ron created here to foster planetary science as an extension of geology.”

Greeley, a pioneer in the planetary geology field, served as the director of the NASA-ASU Regional Planetary Image Facility and principal investigator of the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory at NASA-Ames Research Center. He served on and chaired many NASA and National Academy of Science panels and he was involved in nearly every major space probe mission flown in the solar system since the Apollo Moon landings. Mission projects included the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Magellan mission to Venus, and the Shuttle Imaging Radar orbiter around Earth. He was also part of the data analysis program for the Voyager 2 mission to Uranus and Neptune. His projects focused on the moons of these distant bodies.

Passionate also about Mars exploration, he was involved with several missions to the Red Planet, including Mariners 6, 7, and 9, Viking, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, and the Mars Exploration Rovers. He was a co-investigator for the camera system onboard the European Mars Express mission.

Former students scattered throughout the universities and research institutes of this country provide testimony to his influence on planetary geology.

“As I began my research career, Ron reminded me of the old adage: ‘A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.’ I am fortunate to have had Ron there walking beside me,” says Robert Pappalardo, senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Greeley served as Pappalardo’s advisor. After receiving his doctorate from ASU in 1994, Pappalardo worked with Greeley for a year as a postdoc. Since about 2002, the two worked together on defining the science basis for Europa mission studies.

“Ron was a gentleman, a statesman, a mentor, a scholar,” says Pappalardo. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think, in some situation, ‘What would Ron Greeley do?'”

“Ron was a profoundly influential scientist whose imprint on planetary science will live on through his body of research and the many students he taught and mentored. He was a wonderful friend and colleague. We were fortunate to have known him and will miss him terribly,” says Kip Hodges, founding director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Greeley served a year as interim director of the school before Hodges joined ASU.

“Ron was a very good friend of mine for many years, an incredible leader in planetary science, and the founder and guiding force for planetary science here at ASU. His leadership, friendship, and vision will be sorely missed,” says Christensen.

Greeley’s work lives on in proposed missions to Europa (a moon of Jupiter), and in the numerous students he mentored who today play pivotal roles in space science exploration efforts.

Greeley is preceded in death by his daughter, Vanessa. He is survived by his wife Cindy and his son, Randall (Lidiette). He leaves behind three grandchildren.

A Facebook page has been dedicated to Professor Greeley:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003109532235&sk=wall

Bobby Braun, who is returning to academia after serving as NASA Chief Technologist for the past two years, made a plea for investing in space technology in an article in The Hill newspaper today.

Braun argues that “the pioneering spirit embodied by [NASA] is endangered as a result of chronic underinvestment in basic and applied research.” Investing in aerospace technology also creates high-tech jobs and provides opportunities to science and engineering students to invent technologies “that will form the foundation for humanity’s next great leap across the solar system,” he says.

Funding at a level around 5 percent of NASA’s budget should be allocated to federal spending on space technology in his view, though he does not specify that NASA itself should receive all of that. Other federal agencies, notably the Department of Defense, also invest in space technology. However, his closing comments are directed specifically at what NASA should be doing: “This is the task for which this agency was built. This is the task this agency can complete. America expects no less.”

NASA’s Office of Chief Technologist focuses on maturing technologies that are in their earliest phases of development — Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 1-6. These technologies often do not have a champion since their applications may not be as readily evident as those at higher TRL levels. Technology funding at NASA has been cut sharply by Congress as it tries to find ways to cut federal spending. The FY2012 budget request for Braun’s office is $1.024 billion. In cutting that to $638 million in the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee said that it “regrets not being able to fund this promising program more robustly.” The House Appropriations Committee cut it even more, to $375 million. The House and Senate have not completed action on the CJS bill yet.

Publishing in a newspaper that caters to Capitol Hill politicos rather than in one of the more traditional aerospace media outlets is one way to more directly communicate with the people who will decide the fate of that legislation.

NASA’s NPP earth observing satellite was successfully launched by a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA this morning. The satellite is in orbit with its solar arrays open.

The satellite will now undergo a checkout period that will last several weeks.

Six cubesats were deployed from the Delta II’s second stage after NPP was delivered to its correct orbit: AubieSat-1 from Auburn University, RAX-2 and M-Cubed from the University of Michigan, Explorer-1 [Prime] from Montana State University, and two DICE (Dynamic Ionosphere Cubesat Experiment) satellites from Utah State University.

UPDATE 4: The second burn and spacecraft separation were successful. NPP is on its own now, waiting for its solar panels to open up.

UPDATE 3: NPP is in orbit in a coast phase between the first and second firings of the second stage. The second burn is at 58 minutes 45 seconds.

UPDATE 2: NPP has launched!

UPDATE: They have just come out of the planned 10 minute hold at T-4 minutes.

ORIGINAL STORY:

NASA’s NPP satellite is ready for launch is less than 10 minutes from Vandenberg AFB, CA aboard a Delta II rocket.

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite was designed to test new technologies for the nation’s new weather satellite system. Over the years, the NPOESS program was cancelled, and NPP will be used as an operational weather satellite in NOAA’s polar orbiting system as a bridge between current satellites and NOAA’s new Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), its successor to NPOESS.