Over the course of his career, Mr. Salvatore has accumulated more than 12 U.S. patents and shared his expertise through several scientific articles related to his field at international conferences.
REDONDO BEACH, CA, February 28, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Jeremiah O. Salvatore with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Salvatore celebrates a five-decade saga in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected based on current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all considered during the selection process.
Well-regarded for more than five decades of service in the field of aerospace engineering, Mr. Salvatore has recently served as a self-employed consultant to several organizations, including Lockheed Martin, the Boeing Corporation, and the government of Mexico. With a particular expertise in attitude control systems and orbital mechanics, he has found success through a deep level of expertise in all aspects of design, testing, and in-flight operations.
Mr. Salvatore was initially interested in pursuing a career in writing. However, he later enrolled in a dual degree program at Columbia College, from which he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1964), and the Columbia School of Engineering, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Science (1965). A chance encounter and interview immediately led him to his initial employment on a work-study grant with Hughes Space and Communications (now Boeing Satellite Systems) where he would remain for 38 years. He continued his education at the University of Southern California, earning a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1967, and then completed three years of all required coursework, oral and language exams for a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. He did not take time to write the required thesis because of his intense involvement with real time spacecraft orbital operations.
During his early tenure at Hughes, Mr. Salvatore made significant contributions to the field of satellite engineering. Among these, he designed and implemented nutation control and antenna/yoyo deployment systems for the Application Technology Satellites (ATS), a series of experimental satellites that underwent testing by NASA in the late 1960s. His role in erecting, prior to re-entry, the tumbling ATS-4 satellite/Centaur stack stranded in LEO in 1968 was recognized with a Goddard commendation, the first of five career commendations from different NASA centers. Additionally, he was the architect and consultant for orbital operations on the first dual spin (gyrostat) commercial spacecraft, Intesat-IV, in January 1971. Most impressively, this early experience led Mr. Salvatore to eventually oversee and direct more than 150 spacecraft missions during his career with Hughes Space and Communications.
Mr. Salvatore was promoted to the position of senior scientist at Hughes Aircraft in 1972. In this role, he was responsible for research and development in various areas of spacecraft engineering, including stabilization, mass properties, and launch-to-orbit design and operations. His expertise in these areas helped lead to the design, construction and in-flight operations of various new spacecraft (SC), including the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe and Orbiter, the HS-376 communications spacecraft bus, and the Leasat wide-body spacecraft, among several others. Noteworthy, in response to a flat spin stability problem with ATS-5 in 1969, he proposed and directed over two years of testing several spinning vehicles in a ground vacuum chamber to evaluate the energy dissipation of heat pipes and fuel slosh on spinning spacecraft. Appling dimensional analysis to this vast data base, he published the industry standard evaluation of fuel slosh on attitude stability with his empirical "Salvatore time constant group" in 1972. As a result, significant modifications were made to several classes of spinning spacecraft to insure stable operations in earth orbit and interplanetary travel.
Mr. Salvatore continued to climb the ranks at Hughes, eventually becoming the manager of the orbital operations department. In this role, he directed all commercial launches from 1979 to 1992, including the deployment of 15 satellites via space shuttle (STS) and STS rescue efforts for five Hughes spacecraft. His first notable rescue was proposing and directing the 1984 successful delivery of Westar-VI and Palapa-B2 (two satellites that were initially stranded in wildly different LEO orbits due to similar perigee solid stage (PKM) nozzle failures after two distinct deployments from STS Challenger) to formation flying in a common orbit reachable by STS. The line-of-sight maneuvering of each satellite required an apogee solid stage (AKM) firing for safe recovery and several hundreds of thruster firings over nine months from seven ground stations on five continents. STS Discovery Astronauts Joe Allen and Dale Gardner sequentially recovered each SC by "flying" to the slowly spinning SC with a jet backpack, injecting a "Stinger" into the fired apogee motor nozzle, locking the "bucking bronco" to its separation ring, and flying it back to the STS bay for "Stinger" removal and secure attachment to the STS by both Astronauts. Commander Rick Hauck then piloted the exhausted crew with the 2 SC back to earth. Both spacecraft were refurbished and resold to Asiasat and Palapa. They were both re-launched during Easter week in 1990, Asiasat on a Long March and Palapa on a Delta. Ironically, they both spent 12 years of nominal GEO service next to each other, having only one deg difference in longitude. For this accomplishment, Mr. Salvatore received the Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurels for 1984, shared the National Space Club First Eagle Manned Mission Success Award in 1985 with the late Recovery Astronaut, Dale Gardner, and earned several other commendations.
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The success of "Mission Recovery" made "Mission Salvage" possible less than one year later in 1985. Leasat-F3 deployed from STS Discovery in April was "dead" after separation due to faulty separation electronics. Hughes and Nasa devised a plan to capture the slowly spinning spacecraft, deploy its omni antenna, attach turn-on substitute electronics, employ a manual frisbee deployment and a real-time line-of-sight firing of the solid rocket (SRM) kick stage. After successful execution and deployment per plan by STS Discovery Astronauts in September, several weeks were required to heat the bi-propellants and solid rocket fuel, establish thruster attitude control, and spin-up the spacecraft for the successful first real-time open loop ignition of a solid rocket perigee stage allowing return to the nominal mission plan to achieve GSO (recall two real time ignition of apogee solid rockets (AKM) in LEO were executed in 1984 during "Mission Recovery").
The STS Challenger disaster occurred several months later, on January 28, 1986. The return to flight with STS Discovery occurred over two-and-half years later, on September 29, 1988. All future commercial spacecraft deployments were cancelled. The fifth and last Leasat-F5, with its 15-foot diameter designed for STS launch only, became an orphan. STS Challenger had deployed the bus-size LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility) in LEO on April 13,1984, the STS launch following its Westar/Palapa deployment. LDEF was supposed to be returned to earth with its data treasure in a few years. The decay of LDEF's orbit indicated this huge hunk would re-enter the atmosphere at an unknown time and location in January 1990. NASA did not have any payload to insert into LEO because no time and day of launch were predictable. Mr. Salvatore proposed the "Any Time of Day" launch to get the orphan aboard. The STS would add a "switch" to set a nominal deployment if time of launch was within the Leasat-F5 launch window or just deploy it without enabling PKM at separation if time of launch was outside this window. Missions "Recovery & Salvage" demonstrated Hughes could operate the spacecraft for several weeks that might be required for LEO orbit parameters to change for an optimum manual PKM ignition, if necessary. NASA agreed, Leasat-F5 launched (happily) in its nominal launch window on January 9, 1990, LDEF was retrieved and returned to earth, and Leasat-F5 went on to not only perform its nominal eight-year Navy Geosynchronous orbit mission, but additional maritime missions for over 25 years before retirement.
Finally, he played an essential role in "Mission Re-boost," culminated in May 1992 with the first flight of STS Endeavor, when three astronauts manually "captured" IntelsatVI-F3 and attached a replacement perigee kick motor (PKM). This spacecraft (SC) was stranded in August 1990 when the first commercial Titan Centaur stage failed to achieve a viable LEO and software errors prevented SC separation from it. The only way to free the spacecraft was to separate it from its original PKM/Centaur combo. After an ad hoc separation, the spacecraft was spun up, reoriented and maneuvered into a safe, higher LEO. Hughes & NASA initiated approximately two years of planning and testing the PKM replacement strategy necessary to re-boost the SC. The solution required the first historical 24-hour dual-active rendezvous to a "control box" between STS and spacecraft, initiated at the time of launch. The rendezvous was successful but the first two attempts to capture the SC with the on-board capture device failed and tumbled the SC. Each failure required eight hours of maneuvers to set up the SC next attempt. The third and final attempt required an ad hoc SC collision avoidance maneuver while the three astronauts who would manually grab the SC on the last attempt were sleeping. After the historical three-man-grab, the PKM was attached to the SC and the renovated SC was deployed. The PKM was max-loaded so that the SC could be injected into a super-synchronous transfer orbit (SSTO) to increase on-station life (a new technique which soon became industry wide practice). After a successful firing of the PKM and several weeks of maneuvers, the SC reached GEO orbit over the Atlantic and operated there for over 25 years before retirement.
Rising to the position of chief technologist at Hughes, Mr. Salvatore provided ongoing guidance and troubleshooting for commercial spacecraft operations. His most notable achievement during this time was the proposal and direction of AsiaSat-3's groundbreaking double lunar flyby to achieve a geosynchronous orbit (GSO) in June 1998. Initially deemed a complete loss due to the Proton synchronous stage malfunction on Christmas Day1997, the satellite eventually came under Hughes' ownership (HGS1, an HS601 body-stabilized model) and was ingeniously salvaged by utilizing the moon's gravitational force during two flybys, and 60 SC maneuvers during a 69-day mission completed on June 16,1998.
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HGS1 did not have enough fuel/oxidizer to execute the standard method of firing at apogee to raise perigee to synchronous altitude and remove transfer orbit inclination to achieve GEO. The S/C did have enough bipropellant for multiple firings (13) at perigee to raise apogee to the moon, use the moon's gravity during a flyby to raise perigee to synchronous altitude and remove transfer orbit inclination. The S/C only needed enough bipropellant to fire at the following new synchronous perigee, and "put the brakes on" to lower its lunar apogee to synchronous altitude. Initial orbit geometry was not optimum for this ad hoc attempt, so a second lunar flyby was done to reduce the orbit inclination from the original 51 degrees to a final 7 degrees which would decrease to zero (equatorial) via lunar perturbations during the following seven years. Mr. Salvatore had extended the SSTO approach to the Luna Transfer Orbit (LTO), which minimizes transfer orbit propellant requirements and maximizes payload at the cost of a bigger perigee kick during launch. In recognition of these accomplishments, Mr. Salvatore received the Hughes Chairman's Honors, a Boeing Special Inventions Award, the Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurels for 1998 and several other citations.
Mr. Salvatore retired in 2003 from Boeing Satellite Systems as a senior technical fellow. He subsequently availed himself to the industry as a subject matter expert in various areas, especially life extension operations. Most notable was his plan to maintain Solidaridad-J2 in a sun-synchronous GSO orbit with oxidizer only maneuvers for three years after the SC ran out of fuel in December 2010. This SC (HS601 model) was launched in October 1994 and was the only SC in GSO that the Mexican government had to communicate to the entire country via L-band (its replacement was delayed several years). Mr. Salvatore used his experience with oxidizer only, pulsed thruster operations on JCSAT-1(1997), HGS1(2000) and several others to successfully execute this plan, with monthly maneuvers until SC retirement in December 2013.
Mr. Salvatore became fascinated with the New Horizons SC, launched in 2006 with a flyby of Pluto and its satellites in July 2015, returning incredible photos of the dwarf planetary system three billion miles from earth. After the flyby, a fortunate discovery of another object, named Ultima Thule was ingeniously tracked and targeted for an ad hoc flyby, a billion miles beyond Pluto, on New Year's Day 2019. The photos of the most distant, smallest object ever seen by humanity, appeared to be a slowly spinning Snowman, whose head (Thule) was placed on top of his belly (Ultima). The data indicated that each lobe was spinning stably about their now aligned major axes prior to the merger. Since they had to be separated initially by a vast distance in a similar Kuiper belt solar orbit with different arbitrary initial spinning attitudes, Mr. Salvatore concluded that Newton's gravitational force and gravity gradient torque between the two lobes were responsible for the merger geometry after a very long, distant journey. Moreover, their subsequent merger had to obey Newton's laws of conservation of linear and angular momentum during the marriage ceremony.
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As data from the flyby progressed, Mr. Salvatore spent his Covid years writing what appears to be the thesis he never wrote 50 years ago: "First Order Newtonian Analysis of the Ultima Thule Celestial Marriage (now named Arrokoth)." He (with his son Marc's expertise) will soon launch a new website, "getajerry.com," that will include his belated thesis, rescue videos, technical essays, short stories, and in memoriam.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Salvatore has accumulated more than 12 U.S. patents and shared his expertise through several scientific articles related to his field at international conferences. His success can be attributed not only to his dedicated work ethic and unwavering commitment to his goals, but also to a profound passion for his work. These combined factors have propelled him to achieve remarkable milestones over the span of five decades.
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