George Henry Born was an American aerospace engineer, Distinguished Professor, founder and Director Emeritus of the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.
24 Facts About George Born
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George Born is known for his work in satellite navigation and precise orbit determination.
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George Born worked on various missions while at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as well as navigation support for the Apollo program in the late 1960s while at Johnson Space Center.
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George Born was born on November 10,1939, in a farm house in Westhoff, Texas.
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In 1957, George Born graduated as valedictorian of his class from Industrial High School in Vanderbilt, Texas.
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George Born then transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed his bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1962.
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George Born was part of the Viking program which landed two spacecraft on the surface of Mars and presented interesting navigational challenges.
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George Born was the Technical Group Supervisor of the orbit determination group for the Viking Mars orbiters where the team used images of Phobos and Deimos for approach navigation in an operational setting.
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George Born worked on orbit determination for Seasat where he served as Geophysical Evaluation Manager for the project.
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George Born was in charge of the efforts to demonstrate that the instrument package containing a radar altimeter, windfield scatterometer, synthetic aperture radar, scanning multichannel microwave radiometer, and a visual and infrared radiometer, met all specification for measuring geophysical parameters over the ocean.
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George Born left JPL in 1983 to focus on academic research.
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In 1983, George Born returned to the University of Texas at Austin as a senior research scientist at the Center for Space Research where he was engaged in teaching and research.
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George Born served as director of the research center for 28 years.
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George Born taught graduate courses in statistical orbit determination, orbital mechanics, and interplanetary mission design.
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George Born continued working within the aerospace industry as a consultant for institutions and companies, including JPL, Naval Research Laboratory, General Electric, Kaman Sciences Corporation, Langley Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University and Ball Aerospace.
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In 2015, George Born was named Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado.
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George Born continued working until a few days before his death.
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George Born authored well over a hundred peer-reviewed papers as well as a textbook on statistical orbit determination.
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Additionally, George Born was associate editor of the Journal of Marine Geodesy and astrodynamics editor of the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences.
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George Born was always grateful to Carol for her support and encouragement for all of his graduate students.
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George Born was an avid skier, one of his favorite things about living in Colorado.
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George Born was a big fan of the CU Buffs and had season tickets for the CU football team since 1985.
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In 2008, George Born was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and non-reversible lung disease.
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George Born died in Boulder, Colorado, on January 21,2016, from decaying lung conditions and congestive heart failure.