Marjorie Trees Townsend ( Rhodes; March 12, 1930 – April 4, 2015) was an American electrical engineer, and the first woman to manage a spacecraft launch for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Early life and education

Marjorie Trees Rhodes was born in

Washington, D. C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

At age 15 she started college, and was the first woman to earn an engineering degree from

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

when she graduated in 1951.

Career

Early in her career, Townsend worked for the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...

, and at the

Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological ...

. She joined

in 1959. Her early work there involved weather satellites such as

TIROS-1 TIROS-1 (or TIROS-A) was the first full-scale weather satellite (the Vanguard 2 satellite was the first experimental/prototype weather satellite), the first of a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites placed in low Earth orbit. P ...

and

Nimbus Nimbus, from the Latin for "dark cloud", is an outdated term for the type of cloud now classified as the nimbostratus cloud. Nimbus also may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Halo (religious iconography), also known as ''Nimbus'', a ring of ligh ...

. In time she was the first woman to become a spacecraft project manager at Goddard Spaceflight Center, responsible for Uhuru, the first satellite designed for x-ray astronomy. It was also the first American spacecraft to be launched from outside the United States, in 1970. She worked with Bruno Rossi and Nobel laureate

Riccardo Giacconi Riccardo Giacconi ( , ; October 6, 1931 – December 9, 2018) was an Italian-American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. Biography Born in ...

on the Small Astronomy Satellite program, and went to Kenya when Uhuru was launched by the Italian space program from the San Marco platform there. Townsend retired from NASA in 1980, having received the Exceptional Service Medal and Outstanding Leadership Medal for her work. After that, she served as director of space systems engineering for BDM International, and was vice president at Space America. She retired from her private-sector work in 1996. Townsend was co-inventor of a digital telemetry system, patented in 1968, which was part of the

Nimbus program The Nimbus satellites were second-generation U.S. robotic spacecraft launched between 1964 and 1978 used for meteorological research and development. The spacecraft were designed to serve as stabilized, Earth-oriented platforms for the testing ...

weather satellite.

Honors and professional service

Marjorie Townsend was president of the Washington Academy of Sciences. She was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and chaired a local chapter of the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of ...

. In 1972 she was named a Knight of the Italian Republic Order for her work on Uhuru. She was named a Distinguished Alumnus of George Washington University in 1976. In 2006 she was inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame at her alma mater.

Personal life and legacy

Marjorie Rhodes married Charles E. Townsend Sr., a medical student, in 1948. The couple had four sons together, and lived in the

Cleveland Park Cleveland Park is a residential neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is located at and bounded approximately by Rock Creek Park to the east, Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues to the west, Klingle and Woodley Roads to the ...

neighborhood of Washington DC. Marjorie was widowed in 2001. The Marjorie Rhodes Townsend Papers are held in the Special Collections library at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Townsend, Marjorie American aerospace engineers Women aerospace engineers 20th-century American scientists 20th-century women engineers 20th-century women scientists American women engineers American women scientists George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni NASA people People from Cleveland Park 1930 births 2015 deaths