Space-flight expert Dave Doody of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will describe how spacecraft are targeted and flown to planets and other destinations in the solar system in a free public lecture to be held July 16 at JPL and July 17 at Pasadena City College's Forum, both at 7 p.m. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.
"The Basics of Spaceflight: Clues on How We Send Spacecraft to Planets Millions of Miles Away," is part of the monthly von Karman Lecture Series sponsored by JPL.
Doody is the coauthor, with JPL's George Stephan, of "The Basics of Spaceflight," a popular JPL website feature at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics . Doody also holds a Federal Aviation Administration commercial pilot's license for flying on this planet.
At JPL since 1982, Doody has served as an engineer on a variety of programs and projects, including the Deep Space Network space telecommunications hub, the Voyager mission to the outer planets, and the Magellan mission that orbited Venus. He is now an engineer on the flight operations team of the Cassini mission to Saturn, which began its seven-year flight to the ringed planet in October 1997. Doody's articles appear occasionally in popular magazines.
Before joining JPL, he was an instructor for Japan Air Lines pilots, then a systems engineer for the Santa Catalina Island Co. Doody attended Loyola University and the University of California at Davis, and holds a master's degree from Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, CA.
818-354-5011