April 15, 2015
For the past 34 years, the Center for Space Research (CSR) at The University of Texas at Austin has been monitoring the Earth from above.
Through a series of satellites, each carrying equipment more technologically refined than the last, the center has been involved with tracking important features of the planet, including global topography, land surface water, polar ice mass, sea level and ocean currents.
Overseeing CSR since the beginning has been founder and director Byron Tapley, a professor in UT’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, and holder of the Clare Cockrell Williams Centennial Chair in Engineering.He founded the center in 1981 as an organizing hub for the department’s growing research in geodesy, a branch of science dedicated to measuring parameters of the Earth. Before founding the center, he served as the ASE/EM department chair from 1966–1977, where he helped transition the then aeronautics-only department into one also dedicated to astronautics.
Now, after being led by Tapley for more than three decades, CSR will soon welcome a new director. Michael Watkins (shown above), Manager of the Science Division and Chief Scientist for the Engineering and Science Directorate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), will begin leading the center in July.
Welcoming Back a New Director
Despite the change in leadership, the center will hardly be in new hands. Watkins has been a part of CSR for almost as long as Tapley; first as a graduate student, then as a key center researcher, later as a JPL collaborator. He’s been a Longhorn for even longer, earning his Ph.D., as well as a master’s and bachelor’s in aerospace engineering from UT.
During his 22 years at JPL, Watkins led some of NASA’s most high-profile missions: He was Mission Manager for the operations of the Mars Curiosity rover that landed in 2012; led key NASA development and review teams for the Cassini, Mars Odyssey, and Deep Impact probes; headed science development for GRAIL, a pair of Moon-mapping satellites; and is currently leading the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On missions.
Watkins’ experience contributing to CSR research as well as guiding NASA missions is a unique combination, says ASE/EM department chair Noel Clemens, that will help the center strengthen its foundation while expanding into new areas of space research.
“We conducted a thorough international search for a new director and Mike rose to the top of the list by every measure. He has the expertise, demonstrated leadership skills, and NASA connections to lead CSR to a bold new future,” Clemens said.
Watkins says that he’s excited about advancing CSR’s role in computing and Earth modeling research through collaborations with UT’s Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences and Texas Advanced Computing Center, resources he describes as “three legs of a tripod” supporting research.
“There’s so much potential at UT. It’s the best place to further this kind of research,” Watkins said.
No matter where additional research leads, Watkins will be building on a decades-strong foundation made strong by Tapley’s dedication to the center and pushing the boundaries of Earth imaging science.
Seeing the World Through Satellites
When Tapley graduated from high school in 1952, his goal was to go to the moon. The goal was printed along with his senior portrait in his yearbook, and he maintained it while earning his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from UT. However, his mind changed in the 1970s, when, while serving as chair of the department, he found himself staring down at his completed application form to NASA’s astronaut program.
“I stayed up the better part of a night thinking if I really wanted to do it…but I never actually turned it in,” Tapley said, citing his research progress, family, and the chance that he could go through astronaut training without actually being assigned a mission, as reasons. So he decided to gaze at the Earth from space in another way—through advanced instruments carried by satellites.
“It was at that point I moved from the manned exploration to robotic exploration,” Tapley said.
Dozens of research streams within the center rely on data collected by Earth monitoring satellites, with both Tapley and Watkins being directly involved with the development and launch of many. But the center’s most scientifically important satellite missions are its first, TOPEX/Poseidon, and its most recent, GRACE.
“Two missions, the TOPEX/Poseidon and the GRACE gravity missions have played a major role in the center’s evolution from the time it was established up until today,” Tapley said.
Satellite Success: TOPEX and GRACE
Mike Watkins (far right) and Byron Tapley (left of Watkins) are seen here during a 1992 visit to inspect the LAGEOS-2 Satellite at the NASA-Goddard Space Center prior to its launch at the Kennedy Space center. At this time, Watkins was a research staff member at the Center for Space Research.
Launched in 1992 in collaboration with French National Centre for Space Studiesand JPL, TOPEX mapped features of the ocean to determine the global ocean currents. TOPEX provided insights about the ocean including sea level rise, tides and ocean current circulation on a global scale until 2006, when its battery ran out.
Maps made from GRACE measurements have been used to study topics ranging from the viscosity of the Earth’s mantle to the state of groundwater here in Texas.
“The monthly gravity measurements from GRACE are paradigm shifting. It’s provided a whole new way to look at Earth system dynamics,” Tapley said.
Watkins said working for JPL during GRACE’s development and launch helped further solidify a partnership between the two research sites. It’s a relationship that continues to this day, with the next big collaboration already on the horizon: A “follow-on” mission to replace the current GRACE satellites is scheduled for 2017.
But this time, Watkins will be managing the mission as the center’s Director. And while Tapley says he’ll be around to offer advice and suggestions, he’s looking forward to where the center evolves under Watkins’ direction.
“There are a lot of marvelous advances that have been determined with unmanned probes,” Tapley said. “Mike has strong credentials and we’re looking to see him maintain the center’s current capability while evolving it into new and important areas.”
