JOHN SARKISSIAN OF THE “DISH” WILL BE IN TOWN
Along with Uluru, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, the Parkes Radio telescope is an iconic image recognisable immediately by most Australians. In National Science week we are privileged to have an Operations Scientist in Albury to give a free public lecture.
John Sarkissian is an Operations Scientist at the CSIRO Parkes Radio Observatory. His main responsibilities are the operation and systems development at the radio telescope, and the support of visiting astronomers with their observations. In addition, he is involved in pulsar research - an exciting field of radio astronomy.
John is a member of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) team which is endeavouring to use precision pulsar timing to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves. He is also a member of the small, informal team searching for the missing Apollo 11 slow-scan TV tapes. From 1998-1999, John acted as a technical advisor for the feature film, "The DISH". He came to Parkes in 1996 to support the Galileo Mission to Jupiter. He managed the Galileo spacecraft tracking operations at the observatory and performed 1/3 of the daily tracking duties.
John has received NASA Group Achievement Awards for his work on "The Parkes Radio Telescope X-band Upgrade Task Team" in 2004 and the "Huygens Probe Earth Detection Team" in 2005.
John has also received official NASA commendations for his Galileo support in 1997 and for the search for the missing Apollo 11 SSTV tapes in 2010.
John is a member of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) team which is endeavouring to use precision pulsar timing to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves. He is also a member of the small, informal team searching for the missing Apollo 11 slow-scan TV tapes. From 1998-1999, John acted as a technical advisor for the feature film, "The DISH". He came to Parkes in 1996 to support the Galileo Mission to Jupiter. He managed the Galileo spacecraft tracking operations at the observatory and performed 1/3 of the daily tracking duties.
John has received NASA Group Achievement Awards for his work on "The Parkes Radio Telescope X-band Upgrade Task Team" in 2004 and the "Huygens Probe Earth Detection Team" in 2005.
John has also received official NASA commendations for his Galileo support in 1997 and for the search for the missing Apollo 11 SSTV tapes in 2010.
John’s talk will take us back to the time of one of the most memorable events in the history of “space science” and will allow those who did not see the landing to relive the event via video taken at the time including some tapes of the event that were missing for many years. He will talk about the Dish’s role in the Apollo 11 moon landing and the search for missing video tapes of the historical events that happened at the time.
And just last week he coordinated the Australian end of the Mars rover Curiosity’ landing on the planet
John’s public lecture will be given at 7pm on Thursday 17th August at the CD Blake Lecture Theatre on the CSU Campus at Thurgoona. Come along and relive a bit of history or hear about one of mankind’s most exciting adventures – the first moon landing.
DAVID THURLEY
PRESIDENT
ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF ALBURY WODONGA
Phone 02 6040 3704
or 04 1869 0142
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