Farquhar invented this trajectory that allowed the U.S. He designed the quintuple lunar flyby trajectory that sent the spacecraft through the tail of the P/Giacobini-Zinner comet in September 1985. As the mission’s flight director, Farquhar led the crew that placed ISEE-3 in a “halo orbit” around the gravitational balancing or libration point between the sun and the Earth. Thanks to Farquhar’s efforts, the mission answered many fundamental questions about the nature and origin of asteroids.Īlso while at APL, he helped lead the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) mission the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission to the planet Mercury and the New Horizons mission to the dwarf planet Pluto, and its moon, Charon.Īlso among Farquhar’s career highlights was the International Sun-Earth Explorer/International Cometary Explorer (ISEE-3/ICE) mission. Launched in 1996, NEAR (later called NEAR-Shoemaker) was the first spacecraft to orbit and perform an in-depth investigation of an asteroid, and then safely land on it in February 2001. He held a number of positions that included studies of post-Apollo lunar exploration concepts, the lunar shuttle transportation system, in addition to key management positions for numerous satellite projects.Īt APL from 1990-2007, he conceived, and was the flight director, for the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to the asteroid named Eros. From 1961-1964, he worked at the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in California, perfecting orbital dynamics and control of satellites while also assisting in the preparation of an Interplanetary Flight Handbook for NASA.įrom 1969-1990, he was employed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and NASA Headquarters in Washington. In 1960, he joined NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he participated in the design of the Saturn V launch vehicle. He was 83.Ī 50-year veteran of deep space missions and often referred to as a genius in his field, Farquhar made pivotal contributions to deep space missions to asteroids and comets.
![simairport research stuck at 83% simairport research stuck at 83%](https://caymaneco.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Farming_going_vertical_Photo_by_ALEX_WIGAN_ON_UNSPLASH_Forbes.329132937_std.jpg)
Robert Farquhar, a visionary and expert in planetary exploration, spacecraft design, and celestial navigation at NASA, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel Maryland, and KinetX, Inc., in Tempe, Arizona, died from complications following a respiratory illness at his home in Burke, Virginia on Sunday, October 18.