Louis Dill Friedman (born July 7, 1941) is an American astronautics engineer and space spokesperson. He was born in New York and raised in the Bronx.[1] Dr. Friedman was a co-founder of The Planetary Society with Carl Sagan and Bruce C. Murray.
Louis Friedman | |
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Born | Louis Dill Friedman July 7, 1941 Kingston, New York, U.S. |
Education | University of Wisconsin, Madison (BS) Cornell University (MS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | astronautics, engineering |
Institutions | AVCO, The Planetary Society, Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Thesis | Extracting Scientific Information from Spacecraft Tracking Data (1971) |
In 1961, he earned his Bachelor of Science in applied mathematics and engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1963, he graduated at Cornell University with a Masters of Science in engineering mechanics. In 1971, he graduated with a Ph.D. from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a thesis entitled, Extracting Scientific Information from Spacecraft Tracking Data.[2]
He worked for AVCO Space Systems Division from 1963 to 1968. From 1970 through 1980, he was with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) leading the Advanced Planetary Studies and the post-Viking Mars Program.[3] Other projects at the JPL include Mariner-Venus-Mercury, Planetary Grand Tour (Voyager), Venus Orbital Imaging Radar (Magellan probe), Halley's Comet Rendezvous-Solar Sail, and the Mars Program.[2]