ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey S. ParkerJeffrey S. Parker received his B.A. in 2001 in physics and astronomy from Whitman College (Walla Walla, Washington) and his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Dr. Parker was a member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from January 2008 to June 2012. While at JPL he supported spacecraft exploration as a mission design and navigation specialist. He worked both as a spacecraft mission designer and as a navigator on the GRAIL mission, which sent two spacecraft to the Moon via low-energy ballistic lunar transfers. He supported India's Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon, also as a mission designer and spacecraft navigator. Dr. Parker led the mission design development for numerous design studies and mission proposals, including missions to the Moon, near-Earth objects, the nearby Lagrange points, and most of the planets in the Solar System. At present, Dr. Parker is an assistant professor of astrodynamics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in many subjects related to space exploration. His research interests are focused on astrodynamics and the exploration of space, including the design of low-energy trajectories in the Solar System, the optimization of low-thrust trajectories in the Solar System, autonomous spacecraft operations, and use of these engineering tools to provide new ways to achieve scientific objectives.
Co-Author of Volume 12 of the Deep-Space Communications and Navigation Series: