Marjorie Townsend
Townsend and Bruno Rossi with the X-Ray Explorer Satellite, 1970
Born	Marjorie Trees Rhodes (1930-03-12)March 12, 1930 Washington, D.C.
Died	April 4, 2015 (2015-04-05) (aged 85) Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	George Washington University
Known for	First woman to manage a NASA spacecraft launch
Spouse	Charles E. Townsend Sr.
Scientific career
Fields	Electrical engineer

Marjorie Trees Townsend (née Rhodes; March 12, 1930 – April 4, 2015) was an American electrical engineer, and the first woman to manage a spacecraft launch forNASA.

Marjorie Trees Rhodes was born inWashington, D. C. At age 15 she started college, and was the first woman to earn an engineering degree fromGeorge Washington University when she graduated in 1951.^[1]

Early in her career, Townsend worked for theNational Institute of Standards and Technology, and at theNaval Research Laboratory. She joinedNASA in 1959. Her early work there involved weather satellites such asTIROS-1 andNimbus. In time she was the first woman to become a spacecraft project manager atGoddard Spaceflight Center, responsible forUhuru, the first satellite designed forx-ray astronomy. It was also the first American spacecraft to be launched from outside the United States, in 1970.

She worked withBruno Rossi and Nobel laureateRiccardo Giacconi on the Small Astronomy Satellite program, and went to Kenya when Uhuru was launched by the Italian space program fromthe San Marco platform there.^[2][3]

Townsend retired from NASA in 1980, having received the Exceptional Service Medal and Outstanding Leadership Medal for her work. After that, she served as director of space systems engineering forBDM International, and was vice president at Space America. She retired from her private-sector work in 1996.^[4]

Townsend was co-inventor of a digital telemetry system, patented in 1968, which was part of theNimbus program weather satellite.^[5]

Marjorie Townsend was president of the Washington Academy of Sciences. She was a fellow of theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and chaired a local chapter of theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In 1972 she was named aKnight of the Italian Republic Order for her work on Uhuru. She was named a Distinguished Alumnus of George Washington University in 1976.^[6] In 2006 she was inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame at her alma mater.^[7]

Marjorie Rhodes married Charles E. Townsend Sr., a medical student, in 1948. The couple had four sons together, and lived in theCleveland Park neighborhood of Washington DC. Marjorie was widowed in 2001.^[8]

The Marjorie Rhodes Townsend Papers are held in the Special Collections library at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.^[9]

• American aerospace engineers
• Women aerospace engineers
• 20th-century American scientists
• 20th-century American women engineers
• 20th-century American engineers
• 20th-century American women scientists
• American women scientists
• George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
• NASA people
• People from Cleveland Park
• 1930 births
• 2015 deaths
• Graduate Women in Science members

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