Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, April 19, 1999 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium 

Mario Acuna

ABSTRACT --  The Lunar Prospector is the first dedicated lunar mission in 25 years.  It made the news by announcing that it had discovered "water" on the Moon (by inference from the detection of hydrogen) and confirmed the existence of Lunar magnetism among other important results.  However, the most important accomplishment of Lunar Prospector, from the engineering point of view, was the demonstration that spacecraft and instruments do not have to be large, complex, and expensive to achieve world class science results, a remarkable example of the "KISS" principle.  The Lunar Prospector philosophy and the science per dollar return achieved are interesting examples of a return to old paradigms such as those of the early Explorers developed by GSFC in the 1960's.  This talk will present reflections about the Lunar Prospector mission from the perspective of GSFC's Magnetic Fields experimenters. 

SPEAKER:  Mario Acuna received a PhD (Space Science) from Catholic Univ. in 1974 and a MSEE from the Univ. of Tucum (Argentina) in 1967.  From 1963 to 1967, he was associated with GSFC's international projects in ionospheric research with sounding rockets and ground-based instruments.  Moving to the US in 1967, he worked in GSFC's Sounding Rocket Division; since 1971, he has been with the GSFC Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics.  His interests have centered on space instrumentation and experimental investigations of the magnetic fields and plasmas in the solar system, and as Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, Instrument Scientist, and Project Scientist, he has played a crucial part in many NASA missions.  Dr. Acuna currently serves as the US Project Scientist for the ISTP Program, an international research effort by Japan, Europe, and the US involving more than 300 investigators and multiple spacecraft.  He is also the Principal Investigator for the magnetometer investigations on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission, the Mars Global Surveyor, and Lunar Prospector.  NASA has honored him with numerous prestigious awards, including the GSFC Schneebaum Memorial Award, the Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the Exceptional Service Medal, and the Distinguished Service Medal in recognition for his contributions to magnetometry and space research.