Alan Stern

Alan Stern, born on November twenty-second, nineteen fifty-seven, is a distinguished American engineer and planetary scientist, renowned for his contributions to space exploration. As the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, he has played a pivotal role in expanding our understanding of the outer reaches of our solar system. Currently, he serves as the Chief Scientist at Moon Express, where he continues to push the boundaries of space research.

Throughout his illustrious career, Stern has been involved in twenty-four suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, taking the lead as the principal investigator on eight of these projects. His innovative work includes the development of the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, which was successfully deployed on two space shuttle missions: STS-85 in nineteen ninety-seven and STS-93 in nineteen ninety-nine.

In addition to his mission work, Stern has created eight scientific instruments for planetary and near-space research, and has served as a guest observer on several prestigious NASA satellite observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Ultraviolet Explorer. His leadership experience includes a tenure as executive director of the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division, followed by a brief period as Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in two thousand seven.

Stern's research interests are diverse, encompassing the study of the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, comets, and the satellites of the outer planets, particularly Pluto. He has also explored the search for planetary systems around other stars, spacecraft rendezvous theory, and the dynamics of terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds. His work extends to galactic astrophysics and the investigation of tenuous satellite atmospheres, including that of the Moon.