astronauticsnow.com/2002uscsoe/
Videos on satellite orbits –
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Mike's books
Mike's short courses on space systems
Accelerating the Future
School of Engineering, University of Southern California, 2002
Accelerating the Future (pdf)
School of Engineering, USC, 2002
excerpts: pp. 2 and 28
Senior Faculty Profile (pdf)
Mike Gruntman
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Mike Gruntman first joined USC in 1990 as a research scientist at USC's Space Sciences Center Institute. In 1993 he joined the School's Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering department as an associate professor, and was appointed a full professor in 1998.
Gruntman's broad interests in astronautics include spacecraft and space mission design and space physics, particularly the neutral component of space plasmas and imaging of the heliosphere and planetary magnetospheres. He excelled in the development of the enabling technologies for ultrasensitive particle and photon detectors and analyzers for space instruments.
Gruntman's contributions to space instrumentation, along with his 1997 review article, "Energetic Neutral Atom Imaging of Space Plasmas," in the Review of Scientific Instruments - the world's top journal in its field - led to his appointment to its editorial board. Another article on a new way of exploring the heliopause at the solar system frontier made the American Institute of Physics' list of top 100 achievements in physics for 1998.
Grumman's studies for NASA of the heliosphere and the solar system distant frontier, where the solar wind meets the surrounding galactic matter, and particularly his development of the concept and instrumentation for detection of energetic neutral atoms in space plasmas, have been important contributions to space physics. His research also generated an invitation from NASA to join the team of leading scientists plotting a road map for the next decade of projects in space physics involving the sun-earth connection. The results earned the his research team a NASA Group Achievement Award in 2000.
Gruntman is director of the USC's Astronautics and Space Technology Center (ASTC) that focuses on advanced research projects in aerospace technology and space science.
All that covers about half of Mike Gruntman's work.
In the educational arena, his knowledge, vision, energy, exuberance, and effort have built innovative and succesful degree programs in Astronautics, turning around the aerospace program at USC, which had undergone economy-related retrenchment in the early 90s.
It was clear for him, however, that Los Angeles was the center of pace technology and the space industry would soon recover. Now, he notes, commercial space programs are booming, with a major fraction - perhaps 25% - of the total activity located in Southern California, and "with over half the launches now commercial in purpose." In addition, government space programs have stabilized and are poised for growth in the national security area. Gruntman's faith in the space industry and his redirection of the program toward the new market has turned USC's space program around and made the School a leader in space education.
Gruntman earned his M.Sc. in 1977 at the Department of Aerophysics and Space Research of the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute, and was awarded his Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1984.
Post factum.
Mike's work on energetic neutral atoms led to NASA's IBEX mission.
Mike's effort in development of space education led to the establishment of the Department of Astronautical Engineering at USC in 2004, one of the largest space-engineering educational programs in the country. More on educational programs in astronautics (pdf).
An article in USC Viterbi magazine ("The Great 'What-Ifs' of USC Engineering," pp. 46-51, Fall 2021) noted that "It's perhaps no exageration to say the department [of Astronautical Engineering at USC] would not exist without Gruntman" (pdf).
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