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American space scientist who contributed to 24 satellite and space probe missions,
including some of the early Explorers and
Pioneers
10 and 11. His research focused on planetary
magnetospheres and the solar
wind. He began high-altitude rocket research in 1945, initially used captured
V-2s, and is best remembered for his discovery of the radiation
belts that were subsequently named after him (see Van
Allen belts). Van Allen received a BS from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1935,
and a M.S. (1936) and Ph.D. (1939) from the California Institute of Technology.
After a spell with the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution
of Washington, where he studied photodisintegration, Van Allen moved in 1942 to
the Applied Physics Laboratory at The Johns Hopkins University where he worked
to develop a rugged vacuum tube. He also helped to develop proximity fuses for
weapons used in World War II, especially for torpedoes used by the United States
Navy. By the fall of 1942, he had been commissioned as an officer in the Navy
and was sent to the Pacific to field test and complete operational requirements
for the proximity fuses. After the War, Van Allen returned to civilian life and
began working in high altitude research, first for the Applied Physics Laboratory
and, after 1950, at the University of Iowa. Van Allen’s career took an important
turn in 1955 when he and several other American scientists developed proposals
for the launch of a scientific satellite as part of the research program conducted
during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of
1957-58. After the success of the Soviet Union with Sputnik 1, Van Allen’s Explorer
spacecraft was approved for launch on a Redstone rocket. It flew on January 31,1958,
and returned enormously important scientific data about the radiation belts circling
the Earth. Van Allen became a celebrity because of the success of that mission,
and went on to other important scientific projects in space. In various ways,
he was involved in the first four Explorer probes, the first Pioneers, several
Mariner projects and the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory. Van Allen retired from
the University of Iowa in 1985 to become Carver Professor of Physics, Emeritus,
after having served as the head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy from
1951.
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