Kenneth John Frost
American astrophysicist
Died when: 78 years 306 days (946 months)Star Sign: Libra
Kenneth John Frost (October 3, 1934 – August 5, 2013) was a pioneer in the early space program, designing and flying instruments to detect and measure X-rays and gamma-rays in space, primarily from the Sun.
He was the first to suggest the use of an active scintillation shield operated in electronic anticoincidence with the primary detector to reduce the background from cosmic ray interactions, an innovation that made sensitive hard X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy possible.
He was an American astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center working as a civil servant for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
During his career, he was the project scientist of the Solar Maximum Mission, principal investigator of six science instruments, the head of the Solar Physics Branch, and the associate director of Space Sciences.
Frost received the John C.Lindsay Memorial Award in 1982 for his role as Project Scientist and one of the prime instigators of the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM).
The Lindsay Award is Goddard's highest science award given each year "To recognize the Goddard employee who best exhibits the qualities of broad scientific accomplishments in the area of Space Science." It is named after John Lindsay, the man who hired Frost more than twenty years earlier and who was responsible for starting the series of Orbiting Solar Observatories (OSOs) that produced many of the advances in solar physics and astrophysics in the 1960s and '70s.
Related People
American astrophysicist
.jpg?width=300)
American astrophysicist
American astrophysicist