Alan Stern | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Stern in 2017 | |
| Born | Sol Alan Stern[3] November 22, 1957 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Texas, Austin University of Colorado, Boulder |
| Known for | New Horizons, Exploration of Pluto, Galactic 05 |
| Awards | Nature's 10 (2015)[1] Carl Sagan Memorial Award (2016)[2] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics Aerospace engineering Planetary science |
| Institutions | NASA Southwest Research Institute |
Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer, planetary scientist and space tourist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.[4][5]
Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, including eight for which he was the mission principal investigator. One of his projects was the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, an instrument which flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999.[6][7]
Stern has also developed eight scientific instruments for planetary and near-space research missions and has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer. Stern was executive director of the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division until becoming Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 2007. He resigned from that position after nearly a year.
His research has focused on studies of our solar system's Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, comets, the satellites of the outer planets, Pluto, and the search for evidence of planetary systems around other stars. He has also worked on spacecraft rendezvous theory, terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds, galactic astrophysics, and studies of tenuous satellite atmospheres, including the atmosphere of the Moon.
- ^ "365 days: Nature's 10". Nature. 528 (7583): 459–467. 2015. Bibcode:2015Natur.528..459.. doi:10.1038/528459a. ISSN 0028-0836. OCLC 1076418075. PMID 26701036.
- ^ https://www.swri.org/press-release/swri%E2%80%99s-alan-stern-awarded-carl-sagan-memorial-award-american-astronautical-society-aas [bare URL]
- ^ "Feature: How Alan Stern's tenacity, drive, and command got a NASA spacecraft to Pluto". Science | AAAS. June 22, 2015.
- ^ "Dr. Alan Stern named Chief Scientist for Moon Express". Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
- ^ "Moon Express Announces Dr. Alan Stern as Chief Scientist". Moon Express. Space Ref. July 20, 2011. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
nasa.govwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Dr. S. Alan Stern". Archived from the original on September 7, 2008. Retrieved April 9, 2009.