William H. Pickering | |
|---|---|
 Pickering with a model of theMariner 4 spacecraft, c. 1965 | |
| Born | William Hayward Pickering (1910-12-24)24 December 1910 Wellington, New Zealand |
| Died | 15 March 2004(2004-03-15) (aged 93) Flintridge, California, U.S. |
| Citizenship | New Zealand, United States |
| Known for | Space aeronautics pioneering |
| Awards | Magellanic Premium(1966) IEEE Edison Medal(1972) National Medal of Science(1975) Delmer S. Fahrney Medal(1976) Japan Prize(1994) Daniel Guggenheim Medal(2000) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
| Thesis | A Geiger Counter Study of the Cosmic Radiations (1936) |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert A. Millikan |
William Hayward PickeringONZ KBE (24 December 1910 – 15 March 2004) was a New Zealand-bornaerospace engineer who headedPasadena, California'sJet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 22 years, retiring in 1976.[1][2] He was a seniorNASA luminary and pioneered the exploration of space. Pickering was also a founding member of theUnited States National Academy of Engineering.[3]
Born inWellington, New Zealand, on 24 December 1910, Pickering attendedHavelock School (also attended byErnest Rutherford),Marlborough, andWellington College. After spending a year at theCanterbury University College, he moved to the United States (where he subsequently naturalized), to complete a bachelor's degree at theCalifornia Institute of Technology (Caltech), and later, in 1936, aPhD inPhysics. His speciality was inElectrical Engineering, and he majored in what is now commonly known in scientific vernacular as 'telemetry'.[1] He wrote his PhD thesis underRobert A. Millikan, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923.
William Pickering became involved with theJet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1944, during the Second World War.
As the Director of JPL, from 1954, Pickering was closely involved with management of thePrivate andCorporal missiles under the aegis of the U.S. Army.[1]
His group launchedExplorer I on aJupiter-C rocket fromCape Canaveral on 31 January 1958 less than four months after the Soviet Union had launchedSputnik.
In 1958 the lab's projects were transferred to theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Pickering's team concentrated on NASA's unmanned space-flight program. JPL, under Pickering's direction flew furtherExplorer 3 andPioneer missions as well as theRanger andSurveyor missions to the Moon and the severalMariner flybys of Venus and Mars.
Explorer III discovered the radiation field round the earth that is now known as theVan Allen radiation belt. Explorer 1 orbited for 10 years and was the forerunner of a number of successful JPL Earth and deep-spacesatellites. William Hayward Pickering is not to be confused withWilliam Henry Pickering, anastronomer from an earlier era.
At the time of his retirement as director, in 1976, theVoyager missions were about to launch on tours of the outer planets andViking 1 was on its way to land onMars.
Pickering, keen to support authentic science in his home country, was Patron of New Zealand's only school-based research group, the Nexus Research Group, from 1999 until his death in 2004.Between 1977 and his death in 2004, Pickering also served as Patron of the New Zealand Spaceflight Association; a non-profit organisation that existed from 1977 to 2012 to promote an informed approach to astronautics and related sciences.[citation needed]
Pickering re-opened theGifford Observatory as the guest of honour, on 25 March 2002.[4] He had been a frequent user of the observatory during his school days in Wellington College.
Pickering died on 15 March 2004 ofpneumonia at his home inLa Cañada Flintridge, California, US.[1]
In 2009 to mark theInternational Year of Astronomy, William Hayward Pickering was selected along with cosmologistBeatrice Tinsley to have their names bestowed on peaks in theKepler Mountains of New Zealand'sFiordland National Park. In December 2010 theNew Zealand Geographic Board officially gazetted Mount Pickering as an official New Zealand place name.[10]
Three roads in New Zealand have been named after Pickering, namely: Sir William Pickering Drive in the Canterbury Technology Park inChristchurch; Pickering Crescent inHamilton; and William Pickering Drive inAuckland.
In December 2018 New Zealand companyRocket Lab announced that the fourth launch of theirElectron rocket and their first mission for NASA'sEducational Launch of Nanosatellites programme will be named "This one's for Pickering", in honour of Bill Pickering.[11]
Minor planet5738 Billpickering is named in his honour.[12]
William H. Pickering, a leader of the first successful space flight by the United States and its first two decades of planetary exploration, died on Monday at his home in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif. He was 93.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | 4thDirector of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 1954 – 1976 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
