JPL DESCANSO - Deep Space Communications and Navigation Center of Excellence

Biography

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Ilott

Peter Ilott received his B.Sc. in physics and Ph.D. in electrical engineering at McGill University (Quebec) in 1980 and 1988, and he received his MSc in plasma physics at the Université de Montréal in 1982.


Dr. Ilott came to JPL in 2000. He is the telecommunications lead at JPL for Mars Science Laboratory (launching in 2011) which includes the mission design for entry, descent, and landing (EDL). For the Phoenix Mars Lander, he was a telecom design consultant and participated in EDL operations. For the MER mission, he was the UHF relay engineer and worked EDL and surface operations.


At JPL, Dr. Ilott also worked on Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Deep Impact, and CloudSat. Prior to JPL he worked for 12 years at SPAR Aerospace (now part of MDA) and Hughes Space and Communications (now Boeing Space Systems) on telecommunications systems for commercial mobile communications spacecraft such as MSAT, ICO, and Thuraya, and on remote sensing spacecraft such as RadarSat.


Co-Author of Chapter 8 from Volume 13 of the Deep-Space Communications and Navigation Series:

Mars Science Laboratory


Co-Author of the following article of the DESCANSO Design & Performance Summary Series - Telecommunications: