Portal:New Zealand/Selected article/Week 31, 2006

Sir William Hayward Pickering ONZ KBE (December 24, 1910&mdash;March 15, 2004) was a New Zealand-American who headed Pasadena, California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 22 years, retiring in 1976. He was a senior NASA luminary and pioneered the exploration of space.

His group launched Explorer I from Cape Canaveral on 31 January 1958 less than four months after the Russians had launched Sputnik (much to the surprise of the Americans). Explorer III discovered the radiation field round the earth that is now known as the Van Allen radiation belt. Explorer 1 orbited for 10 years and was the forerunner of a number of successful JPL earth and deep-space satellites.

Between 1977 and his death in 2004, Pickering also served as Patron of the New Zealand Spaceflight Association; a non-profit organisation which exists to promote an informed approach to astronautics and related sciences. Recently featured: Tangiwai disaster · Agathis australis · Whitianga · Archive