23 Facts About Jacques Blamont

Jacques Blamont was an elected fellow of the French Academy of Technologies and a professor emeritus of the Pierre and Marie Curie University.

Jacques Blamont died on 13 April 2020 in Chatillon, Hauts-de-Seine, aged 93.

Jacques Blamont was born in Paris in France on 13 October 1926 and did his studies at the Ecole Normale Superieure where he came in contact with the Nobel laureate, Alfred Kastler, who was serving the institution as a professorial chair.

Jacques Blamont graduated from Ecole Normale Superieure in 1948 and continued his studies at the National Centre for Scientific Research as an associate of physical sciences.

Jacques Blamont continued at CNRS for a year more as a research fellow and joined the Aeronomy Service of the institution in 1957 where he became the deputy director in 1958.

Jacques Blamont worked in many capacities during his stay with CNES, as a Scientific and Technical Director, as Top Scientific Advisor and as an advisor to the President of CNES from 1982.

Jacques Blamont worked as a research director at Ecole Militaire.

Jacques Blamont was a member of International Academy of Astronautics, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, USA, Air and Space Academy, Academia Europaea, Academy of Technology, French Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Jacques Blamont was a member of the advisory council of the Planetary Society.

Jacques Blamont was one of the pioneers of French space programme and his efforts were reported in the establishment of CNES, the French Space Agency, in 1962.

Jacques Blamont was known to have contributed to the launch of the first French rocket, Veronique, in 1957.

Jacques Blamont was one of the founders of Service d'aeronomie du CNRS, and was its director from 1958 to 1985.

Jacques Blamont participated, as a member of the steering groups, in several global space missions such as the Voyager and Pioneer-Venus of NASA and Vega mission of the Soviet Union to Venus and Halley's Comet and acted as the chief investigator of the Phobos program of the USSR.

Jacques Blamont assisted Vikram Sarabhai in the establishment of the Indian National Committee for Space Research which later grew to become the present day Indian Space Research Organization and played a part in providing the payload for the first two Indian rocket launches in 1963 and 1964.

Jacques Blamont was credited with the discovery of turbopause in 1959, the interstellar wind in 1970, the hydrogen envelope of comets in 1971 and the polar noctilucent clouds in 1973.

Jacques Blamont was the head of the group which introduced scientific ballooning and Lidar technology for atmospheric probing in Europe.

The image compression device developed by Jacques Blamont is in use with various space agencies for planetary missions around the Moon, Mars and Titan.

Jacques Blamont contributed to the establishment of a launch range, in Kourou, French Guiana.

Jacques Blamont, besides writing several articles on science, authored four books, viz.

Jacques Blamont mentored 80 research scholars in their doctoral research.

Jacques Blamont received three of the highest French civilian honours, Commander of the Legion of Honour, Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit and Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit apart from the honour of the Commander of the Order of Academic Palms and the Silver Medal from the President of the French Republic in 1967.

Jacques Blamont received the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples from the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1989 and the Government of India awarded him the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri in 2015.

Jacques Blamont won three awards from the International Academy of Astronautics, Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Award in 1967, Guggenheim Medal in 1986 and Von Karman Award in 1989.