Robert J. Parks

Robert J. "Bob" Parks (April 1, 1922 – June 3, 2011) was an American aerospace engineer and pioneer in the space program who was involved into multiple NASA space missions. Parks worked for more than 40 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/Caltech), located in Pasadena, California. He served as Guidance Engineer for Explorer 1, the first successfully launched US. He directed the initial flyby missions to the Moon (Ranger 7, 8 and 9 missions), the first soft landing on the Moon (Surveyor Lunar Lander), Earth's first successful mission to another planet (Mariner 2 to Venus) and initial missions to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus.

Parks concluded his career as Deputy Director of the JPL and retired in 1987. Some of the awards he received for his work include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1967), the Stuart Ballantine Medal (1967), the Goddard Astronautics Award (1980) and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award in 1982.

Early life Robert Joseph Parks was born on 1 April 1922 in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Glendale and Balboa Island. His father was petroleum engineer Joseph Burton Parks, his mother was Ruth (Feltz) Parks, and his brother was Jerome W. Parks. He attended California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he played in the backfield on the freshman football team (including one game in the Rose Bowl, Caltech's home field) and was elected to Tau Beta Pi, the honorary engineering fraternity. He graduated with honors in 1944, with a BS degree in electrical engineering.

From February 1944 to June 1946 he served with the US Army Signal Corps, including a tour in occupied Europe. During his service, he received considerable additional schooling in electronics and radar at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Army's Fort Monmouth. He was discharged from the Army as a first lieutenant. While stationed in Austria, he met his future wife Hanne Richter, an interpreter and the daughter of a professor at the Vienna Conservatory of Music.

Awards and later life Parks received numerous awards for his distinguished service at JPL, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1963) and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1967). In 1973, Parks was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "Contributions in radio-inertial guidance, communications methods, systems engineering, and project management of spacecraft and missiles." He was awarded the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award in 1982.

At the time of his retirement from JPL in 1987, Parks was living with his wife Hanne in nearby Balboa Island, California. He was survived by his three sons. Parks died on 3 June 2011, at 89.