Colin Pillinger
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Colin Pillinger (born in Bristol May 9 1943) is a planetary scientist at the Open University in the UK. He graduated with a BSc and a Ph.D. at the University of Wales Swansea. In May 2005 he was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis. [link]
Career
- 1965 B.Sc (Chemistry) from University of Wales, Swansea
- 1968 Ph.D (Chemistry) from University of Wales, Swansea
- 1981 Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
- 1981 member of the British Mass Spectrometry Society
- 1984 D.Sc (Chemistry) from University of Bristol
- 1986 Fellow of the Meteoritical Society
- 1991 made Professor of Planetary Sciences at Open University
Beagle 2
He was the principal investigator for the Beagle 2 Mars lander project, part of European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission.Pillinger took a sometimes forceful role in advocating the Beagle 2 project. In one case, he derided NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project, and touted his own project. This was the source of some embarrassment, when his own lander failed, and both of NASA's rovers landed successfully and completed their missions. Beagle 2 is believed to have had a failure related to the parachute system, but the exact reason will likely not be known until an on-site assessment can be performed. Ironically in view of his criticism of NASA, Pillinger has asked the agency to allow him to "piggyback" on a future mission.
Several months later, on September 8, 2004, another spacecraft with which Pillinger had a design role, Genesis, suffered a parachute failure during the descent phase, though the subsequent determination of the cause of Genesis's parachute failure rules out any link between the two failures.
Contrary to his claim on Channel 4 News on March 27 2006, Pillinger has never been to the moon.
See also
External links
- [Official site].
- [Beagle 2 - in conversation with Colin Pillinger] from a talk at the Royal Society
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