William Hayward Pickering
William Hayward Pickering (born December 24, 1910 in Wellington , † March 15, 2004 ) was a New Zealand - American space pioneer. From 1954 to 1976 he was director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Pickering studied at the University of Canterbury and Caltech , where he received his doctorate in physics in 1936. Initially, he dealt with experiments on cosmic radiation , which at that time served as an accelerator replacement for the observation of elementary particles. He carried out balloon experiments with Robert Millikan and developed the electronics for cloud chamber detectors. This also led to the collaboration with Carl D. Anderson , who discovered the positron with the electronics developed by Pickering .
His preoccupation with electronics and telemetry led him to space exploration. He was at Caltech from 1936 and from 1944 at JPL. In 1947 his frequency modulation telemetry system became the standard for communicating with missiles. In 1947 he headed the JPL team that turned the WAC Corporal research missile into the military ballistic missile "Bumper" . In 1954 he became director of JPL at Caltech. On January 31, 1958, his group launched Explorer 1, the USA's first artificial satellite. In the same year, the JPL space projects were transferred to NASA and Pickering led the Explorer 3 and Pioneer missions, the Ranger and Surveyor missions to the moon and some Mariner missions to Mars and Venus. At the time of his retirement, the Voyager mission was in preparation.
In 1975 Pickering was named an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire . In 1996 he received the Magellanic Premium , in 1972 the IEEE Edison Medal , in 1975 the National Medal of Science and in 1994 the Japan Prize. He was featured twice on the cover of Time Magazine . In 1996 the asteroid (5738) Billpickering was named after him. In 2010 a mountaintop in the Kepler Mountains in Fiordland National Park in New Zealand was named after him. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering , in 1962 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1964 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In addition to New Zealand, he was also a US citizen.
Web links
- John Campbell: Bill Pickering - A Brief Biography. 2001. at www.rutherford.org.nz
Individual evidence
- ^ Honorary Knights and Dames at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
- ^ The Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society , website of the APS . Retrieved October 29, 2019.
- ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 27128
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pickering, William Hayward |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | New Zealand physicist and space pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 24, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wellington |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 15, 2004 |