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Firouz Naderi, an Iranian American scientist who directed the Mars program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, together with two profitable landings on the planet, died on June 9 in Los Angeles. He was 77.
His household stated that Dr. Naderi died in a medical facility from issues of a fall final month that broken his spinal wire and left him paralyzed. “Life is unpredictable,” Dr. Naderi stated in an announcement on Fb after the accident.
Laurie Leshin, the director of the laboratory, stated in an electronic mail that Dr. Naderi was “a visionary whose work impacted lots of the house missions developed at JPL over the previous three a long time.” She additionally stated that he was a “sensible mentor to these main our house exploration missions at present.”
For a lot of Iranians and Iranian Individuals, Dr. Naderi’s profession demonstrated how far an immigrant may attain in America — in his case, actually for the celebrities. In an period when information of Iran was usually unfavourable, he was seen as a supply of nationwide pleasure. Many younger Iranian scientists stated he impressed their skilled journeys.
Dr. Naderi was additionally an outspoken advocate for human rights and democracy in Iran. Throughout the rebellion towards the federal government over the previous yr, he helped buy and switch about 100 Starlink satellite tv for pc receivers to Iranian activists so they may go surfing to the web with out authorities restrictions.
He served on the boards of quite a lot of nonprofit organizations centered on Iran-related points together with selling civic engagement of Iranians and Iranian tradition in the US, and childhood schooling and the therapy for pediatric most cancers in Iran.
He mentored dozens of Iranian scientists and college college students, in the US and in Iran, whom he known as the kids he by no means had. He usually stated in interviews that he thought-about influencing younger minds to be his largest accomplishment.
In 2017, when the Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi requested Dr. Naderi and one other scientist to simply accept his second Oscar, for “The Salesman” (he was boycotting the ceremony in protest of President Donald J. Trump’s journey ban), Dr. Naderi speculated that the request needed to do along with his affiliation with house journey.
“When you go away from the Earth into house, and also you look again on the Earth, you see it as a single blue marble,” he stated. “You see no borders, no strains, separating individuals.”
Dr. Naderi was appointed to handle NASA’s Mars program in 2000. He’s credited with retooling it after a few earlier failures.
He directed at the very least 5 missions to Mars. He supervised the Mars Odyssey, a spacecraft launched in 2001 that’s nonetheless orbiting the planet, accumulating information to search out out what Mars is made from and to detect water and ice. In 2004, he oversaw the landings of the robots Spirit and Alternative, which explored the planet’s floor.
In 2006, he oversaw the launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can be searching for proof of water. And he ran the Mars Pattern Return program, which is scheduled to launch in two phases in 2027 and 2028 with the aim of returning samples collected by an earlier rover to Earth.
He was additionally the supervisor of the Origins program, which research how life may exist on different worlds. And he laid the groundwork for NASA’s plan to launch an orbiter to circle Europa, one among Jupiter’s moons, to seek for extraterrestrial life.
“Firouz Naderi was a large,” the NASA administrator and former senator Invoice Nelson stated on Twitter. “He helped to redefine humanity’s data about Mars and reinvigorate our sense of curiosity.”
Firouz Michael Naderi was born on March 25, 1946, in Shiraz, Iran, the youngest of three sons of Karim Naderi, a rich landowner, and Homa Ilchi, his third spouse, who got here from a outstanding political household.
They divorced when Firouz was 4 years previous. His father gained full custody and banned visits between the boys and their mom. Firouz was positioned underneath the care of his father’s first spouse, Ehteram Saltaneh Naderi, who raised him till he was 12.
Firouz was despatched to a Roman Catholic boarding college in Tehran, the place he was a star pupil and a math whiz. However a profession in house exploration, he stated in later interviews, was by no means on his radar.
He left Iran in 1964 to attend Iowa State College, the place he acquired a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering. After incomes a doctorate in digital picture processing on the College of Southern California, he returned to Iran in 1976.
He labored for the Iranian authorities as director of the Iranian Distant Sensing Company, which used satellite tv for pc information from the American Landsat program to observe Iran’s pure assets, till the Islamic revolution toppled the monarchy in 1979.
The nation’s new leaders had been suspicious of anybody with ties to the West, and Dr. Naderi fled to Los Angeles. He was employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a telecommunications engineer and, as soon as there, developed an curiosity in house science.
He rose rapidly from numerous technical jobs to government positions, associated first to satellite tv for pc packages after which to house exploration.
In his early 40s, he married Parvin Kassaie, a fellow Iranian American who labored because the laboratory’s academic affairs workplace supervisor. The wedding lasted just a few years, however they remained shut buddies till Dr. Naderi’s dying.
Dr. Naderi is survived by his sisters, Pari Naderi, Mahin Naderi and Niloufar Arabsheibani, and his brothers, Kazem, Ahoura and Sia Naderi. One other brother, John, died final yr.
After leaving the Mars program, Dr. Naderi turned an affiliate director on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, overseeing new undertaking methods. He was later the laboratory’s director of photo voltaic system exploration, overseeing missions to Saturn, Jupiter and Europa.
Dr. Naderi longed to return to Iran, however he by no means did. Throughout his time at NASA, he was suggested to not journey there for safety causes, and after he retired he turned an outspoken critic of Iran’s authorities.
Kazem Naderi, an architect in New York, stated that his brother stored a jasmine plant on his balcony dealing with the Pacific Ocean as a result of the scent reminded him of the gardens of Shiraz.
His countrymen handled him like a folks hero. When he visited London, Iranian college college students chased his automotive, knocking on the home windows, Ms. Arabsheibani stated in a phone interview. Dr. Naderi stopped the automotive and obtained out to speak to the scholars.
“They requested for autographs and footage,” Ms. Arabsheibani stated, “and he was so happy and humble, speaking to everybody.”
Dr. Naderi acquired NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and an Ellis Island Medal of Honor for distinguished contributions to American society.
Upon his retirement in 2016, the Worldwide Astronomical Union named an asteroid after him at NASA’s request. The asteroid, 5515 Naderi, is a rock about six miles in diameter orbiting the solar between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, removed from the borders separating individuals on Earth.
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