Dr Angus D.McRonald is a Senior Engineer. He received his PhD and MS degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California. He has been an active researcher in several areas, beginning with neutron physics in England and going on to electronic and optical instrumentation for wind tunnels and shock tubes in Australia. His research at JPL includes experiments in the former wind tunnels and shock tubes and computer modeling of flight in planetary atmospheres to support mission design. Dr. McRonald has published in the areas of aerobraking, aero-gravity assist and ballute aerocapture. He has created software for these tasks and has used it to analyze spacecraft breakup in accidental Earth reentry of spacecraft carrying radioactive generators to support launch approval for Voyager, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini, Pathfinder, MER, Pluto and other missions and for evaluation of planetary quarantine for cruise stage entry at Mars for several missions. He has contributed to design of aerocapture vehicles for manned flight at Mars and Earth and a vehicle for descent, landing and ascent at Mars.

Peter Jaffe is a Senior Engineer. He received an MS degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a BS degree in Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. His principal areas of expertise include: high speed aerodynamics, atmospheric flight mechanics, planetary entry configuration analysis, reentry dynamics, reentry breakup analysis, analysis of explosions resulting from launch accidents and the analysis of potential threats from accidents to RTG’s (nuclear “batteries”) used in outer planet missions. Mr. Jaffe has published over 25 articles and is a previous member of the AIAA Technical Committee on Atmospheric Flight Mechanics and the ASTM Subcommittee on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion Standards. Previous positions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory include: Head of the Voyager Spacecraft Breakup Analysis Team, Field Test Director of the Photovoltaic Solar Array Project, and a member of the RTG Nuclear Safety Team for the Galileo and Ulysses missions.