Andy Turner

Andy Turner has more than 24 years of experience in the space business at Space Systems/Loral (SS/L). He is currently supporting both internal and contract research and development efforts involving modifications to SS/L spacecraft for new applications. For nearly 10 years Andy was the lead orbit dynamics analyst for constellation design and implementation on the Globalstar cellular telephone constellation, which is in low earth orbit. Andy was also involved in the development of the Sirius constellation that involves Tundra orbits. During the 1980s Andy worked on orbit dynamics and systems engineering for many SS/L geosynchronous satellite programs including Intelsat-VII, Superbird-A, Intelsat V, and NATO III-D, and was involved in a number of proposals such as SS/L’s entry in the Mars Observer proposal in the mid-1980’s. In the past few years Andy has co-authored a number of papers with JPL engineers on spacecraft in orbit around Mars to relay communications between the surface of Mars and Earth. Andy has taught and directed other engineers to train customer personnel in spacecraft operations including Intelsat, SatMex, Globalstar, Sirius, DirecTV, and PanAmSat. He also taught and directed other engineers in a training program maintained by Loral for the U.S. Air Force Satellite Control Facility for 12 years. Andy has taught graduate courses in orbit dynamics at Stanford and San Jose State University. Since 1998 Andy has been working on the Aquarius low-cost launch vehicle. This work has included a number of technical studies funded by the State of California and the U.S. Air Force. Andy has supported several NASA study contracts, including an Alternate Access to Station (AAS) study in 2000. Andy also supported the DARPA Orbital Express On-Orbit Servicing Phase A study from 2000 through 2002. Before joining SS/L in 1981, Andy was a staff astronomer at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory, studying the orbit dynamics of double stars.