Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Seeking New Director
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is seeking a new director to succeed Ralph Semmel who will retire next summer. JHUAPL encompasses four sectors: Air and Missile Defense, Asymmetric Operations, Force Projection, and Space. The space sector has built and operated many spacecraft for DOD and NASA with more on the way including Dragonfly, an octocopter that will fly over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Semmel has been JHUAPL director since 2010 and announced in July that he’ll retire in July 2025. JHU President Ron Daniels praised his tenure as “nothing less than extraordinary and transformative.”
A national search for his successor is underway.
JHUAPL is a not-for-profit University-Affiliated Research Center (UARC) founded in 1942 as part of the government’s efforts to harness science and engineering expertise during World War II. Its original assignment was to develop technology to defend Navy ships from enemy attack.
Over the decades its portfolio greatly expanded. Headquartered on a 461-acre site in Laurel, MD, it boasts 9,500 staff members working “to deliver innovative solutions to the nation’s most complex challenges” in these areas:
- Civil Space Flight
- Cyber Operations
- Global Health
- Homeland Defense
- National Security Analysis
- National Security Space
- Precision Strike
- Research and Exploratory Development
- Sea Control
- Space Formulation
- Special Operations
- Strategic Deterrence
- Theater Defense
More information is on the recruiter’s website.
Dragonfly is just one of JHUAPL’s many space missions, but certainly one of the most innovative. Planned for launch in July 2028, the nuclear-powered octocopter will land on and fly over Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
The only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere, Titan was first explored by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and ESA’s Huygens probe that separated from Cassini and descended through Titan’s atmosphere. Huygens continued to transmit data until it reached the surface. The results were tantalizing, showing sand dunes as well as methane rivers and lakes. Dragonfly will continue the quest to understand that very special world.
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