LASP Scientists And Teams Receive NASA Achievement Medals

September eight, 2019 – LASP scientists Robert Ergun and Richard Eastes have been acknowledged by NASA for his or her enduring contributions to their respective fields in current ceremonies on the company’s Goddard Spaceflight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Ergun, additionally a professor within the CU Boulder Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences Division, was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service
Medal for designing and constructing modern electrical discipline devices
for a lot of NASA flight missions, together with the MAVEN Mars mission and the
Parker Photo voltaic Probe, presently making record-breaking close-in orbits of
the Solar. The Distinguished Public Service Medal is NASA’s highest type
of recognition awarded to a non-government particular person whose service,
means, or imaginative and prescient has personally contributed to NASA’s development of
the U.S.’s pursuits.

“I’m vastly honored to be chosen for this award,” Ergun stated. “I
share this honor with many who’ve contributed to our devices for
NASA missions,” he added.

Ergun’s analysis pursuits are heliospheric and astrophysical
plasmas, or charged particles, with purposes to Earth’s and
Jupiter’s magnetosphere, Mars’ ionosphere, and the photo voltaic wind.

Previous recipients of the award embrace Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson,
Clyde Tombaugh, Alan Stern, and LASP’s personal Invoice McClintock (in 2018).

Eastes, who presently serves because the principal investigator for the
LASP-built GOLD instrument, was acknowledged with the NASA Distinctive
Public Service Medal for his work on GOLD and a profession devoted to raised
understanding the advanced dynamics of the Earth’s near-space boundary.
The Distinctive Public Service Medal is awarded to a non-government
particular person for sustained efficiency that embodies a number of
contributions on NASA tasks, applications, or initiatives.

“Alternatives to contribute to NASA’s science missions, in addition to
to learn from them, have been great experiences,” stated Eastes. “I
am indebted to the various others who made alternatives develop into actuality.
The dignity of this award is a tribute to their distinctive contributions
and my restricted contributions to NASA’s missions.”

Along with the person accolades, LASP was additionally acknowledged by
NASA with two group achievement awards: a Silver Achievement Medal for
the GOLD instrument staff and a Group Achievement Medal for the MMS
operations staff.

GOLD, the World-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk instrument,
is an ultraviolet spectrograph that measures densities and temperatures
in Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere, info essential to
understanding how communications and navigation satellites may be
affected by incoming radiation from the Solar. LASP additionally manages the
science operations middle for GOLD.

The MMS, or Magnetospheric Multiscale, mission, for which LASP hosts
the payload operations middle, is finding out magnetic reconnection, a
course of that faucets the vitality saved in a magnetic discipline and converts it
into warmth and kinetic vitality within the type of charged particle
acceleration and large-scale flows of matter. LASP additionally contributed key
elements to the MMS electrical and magnetic discipline devices.

“The lifeblood of NASA analysis is the modern instrumentation
that flies in area,” stated LASP Director Daniel Baker. “Bob Ergun and
Richard Eastes personify the dedication and creativity that allows new,
thrilling observations of the Solar, the Earth, and the universe past.
They’re leaders of their respective fields and so they allow LASP to be
on the forefront of understanding our place within the cosmos. The awards
bestowed upon Bob, Richard, in addition to the GOLD and MMS groups, are
testimony to the popularity of NASA and your complete group of LASP’s
management in scientific exploration.”