Plenary
Dr. John Casani
Retired from JPL
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John Casani retired from JPL in 2012, his career having spanned the entire beginning of planetary exploration at JPL. Casani initially joined JPL in 1956 to work on inertial guidance systems, and then held various positions throughout the organization before becoming the Assistant Lab Director for Flight Projects in 1989.
Casani led the design teams for both the Ranger and Mariner series of spacecraft and held a senior leadership position on the Mariner Mars ’64 project, which obtained the first close-range images of Mars. In 1975 Casani became project manager of the Voyager project, which launched twin spacecraft to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These spacecraft continued to collect information 40 years after launch and have made many intriguing discoveries, including an ocean of liquid water on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. After the launch of the two Voyagers in 1977, Casani was named project manager for the Galileo spacecraft project, which sent back to Earth important images of Jupiter and its moons over the course of 14 years.
In the early 1990s Casani became project manager of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon Titan, one of the most complex planetary missions ever designed. Later that decade, he assumed the role of chief engineer at JPL.
Casani holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Honorary Aerospace Engineering degree from the University of Rome. Casani was elected into the National Academy of Engineering for pioneering systems engineering of planetary spacecraft. He is an Honorary Fellow of the AIAA and a member of the International Astronautics Academy. He is a recipient of several NASA awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal, the Exceptional Achievement Medal, and the Medal for Outstanding Leadership. In addition, Casani received the Management Improvement Award (1974) from the President of the United States for the Mariner Venus Mercury mission, the AIAA Space Systems Award (1979), the National Aerospace Club’s Astronautics Engineer Award (1981) for the direction of the Galileo project. He received the von Karman Lectureship (1990), the AAS Space Flight Award (1989), the AAS William Randolph Lovelace II Award (2005), the Air and Space Museum Trophy for Lifetime Achievement (2009), and the NAE Founders Award (2009).
