The Team
Dr.James L.Burch

Few people have a more integral role in the MMS-SMART mission than Dr. James L. Burch. Dr. Burch is the vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute.

Education

  • Bachelor degree of Physics from St. Mary's University
  • Master's in administration of research and development from George Washington University
  • a doctorate in space science from Rice University


Work

  • He worked as a phycisist for NASA for six years
  • Then he began his work at SwRI in 1977. Since that time, he has been on the forefront of many monumentous projects. He has attained leading positions such as Co-Investigator of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer(CAPS) project as well as on the Polar/TIDE Project. He was the Principal Investigator(PI) on the Dynamics Explorer/ High Altitude Plasma Investigation, the Spacelab/Space Experiments, the Rosetta Ion and Electron Sensor, and even more recently, the IMAGE Mission.


MMS-SMART

     In May of 2005, he was selected to be the leader of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission Instrument Suite Team. SwRI then took up the task with other institutions including the Goddard Space Flight Center; the Austrian Academy of Sciences; in addition to some universities including: the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of New Hamphsire; and Rice University. Dr. Burch is also the Principal Investigator of the "Solving Magnetospheric Acceleration, Reconnection, and Turbulence (SMART) team. With this position, he is primarily responsible for how the project is conducted and the intergration of all the groups and information into a cohesive unit.  His efforts with this great undertaking will gather eminent findings in the upcoming years.


Honors

   For all of his brilliant achievements, he was elected chariman of the National Research Council and the American Geophyscial Union(AGU). He has also edited various science research materials.


Dr. William C. Gibson

   Dr. Gibson is the Project Manager of the MMS-SMART mission. He has a very important job as well.

Education

  • Bachelor's degree of Engineering Science at Centenary College of Louisinaa
  • Graduate study in Electrical Engineering from University of Houston ;
  • Doctorate’s study in Engineering Science from the University of Florida

    Work

  • Project manager for Image mission Space Payload Manager for New Horizons mission
  • Assistant Vice President of the Space Science and Engineering Division
  • Worked on Space Instruments for Ion and Electron Sensor for Rosetta, Spacelab instruments, High Altitude Plasma Instrument for Dynamics Explorer

    Smart-MMS

       With MMS, Dr. Gibson was the Project Manager for the Instrument Suite Team. In regards to the SMART area, he is the Project Manager and he is responsible for the process of keeping cost, managing daily tasks, and keeping schedule, and many other things. This is critical to the success of the project and how it all unfolds.

        Many other individuals are involved in this ground-breaking mission.


    Click here to see further lists, charts, and descriptions of the whole team.

     

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