In Memoriam:
Jon V. Harrison, Ph.D.
Jon Harrison was involved for more than 50 years in the study of spinning spacecraft attitude dynamics.
During the 1970s, he was employed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corp. and Aerospace Corp. After employment at Hughes Aircraft Co.,where he served as head of the Dynamics and Analysis Section, he became an independent consultant for Rocketdyne and Ford Aerospace. Applied Dynamics Laboratories was formed by Dr. Harrison as an outgrowth of his consulting work.
Dr. Harrison conceived the drop test method in 1980, applying it first to the INSAT spacecraft. Despite a rudimentary data-collection system during testing, flight data from INSAT (1980) showed agreement to within 20%. He refined the method in more than two decades of research. Flight data obtained from British Aerospace for Inmarsat (1985) verified test results to within 4% error. Flight data obtained from Mars Global Surveyor (1996) verified test results to within 0.2% error.
Jon passed away peacefully in 2026.
Jon Harrison
1940 - 2026