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PROFESSOR SIR ROBERT WIESON was a distinguished astrophysicist, famous for his leadership in the design, development, and deployment of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite. The satellite was launched in January 1978. It was enormously successful, making new discoveries about a diverse range of astronomical objects, which were described in more than one thousand papers by more than six hundred astronomers from twenty-seven countries. The satellite was planned to operate for three years. It provided valuable data for eighteen years. In its day it was the most productive and most versatile astronomical facility ever placed into orbit, and its outstanding success set the stage for later missions like the Hubble Space Telescope.
In bringing the IUE to fruition, Robert had to overcome innumerable obstacles, political, bureaucratic, and scientific, and without his organizational skills, his powers of persuasion, and his exceptional grasp of the scientific potential there would have been no IUE. His original proposal for a space-borne observatory was presented in 1968. It received a highly favorable review by an expert scientific panel, but was turned down by the European Space Agency. Robert responded by carrying through a complete redesign of a more comprehensive facility and, with the help of Leo Goldberg, then director of Harvard College Observatory and chairman of the Astronomy Missions Board, submitted it to NASA. The end result was IUE, jointly supported by NASA and ESA. In recognition of his leadership role Robert was...