More than ever, unknown unknowns, lessons learned, acceptable risk and doing more with less still govern the planning and operation of space missions in the age of JWST and Space-X. All the same precepts and hard-won lessons hold, but apparently, we’ve all just gotten better at it. In a presentation suitable for a general audience, Dr. Bashar Rizk will present his own results and observations from missions in which he has participated—including Cassini, OSIRIS-REx and Mars Sample Return—that demonstrate the point.

Bashar has worked as an applied physicist in a university research and development setting for nearly 45 years on various R&D projects. Thirty-seven of those years have been at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, working on mission, spacecraft and remote sensing system design & development, test, calibration, planning & operations, data processing and analysis. He has also worked in radiometry, thermal modeling, radiative transfer, photogrammetry & stereo-photoclinometry, ground-based astronomy, noise analysis, integrated circuit fabrication, laser and microwave device system development and elementary particle physics. Bashar was born in Damascus, Syria, but mostly grew up in cloudy Champaign-Urbana, IL and hazy Greensboro, NC before he crossed the Mississippi and Rockies and discovered Tucson, AZ and its clear nighttime skies. He enjoys spending time with his wife and 2 children, writing and biking. He holds a BS in physics and chemistry, an MS in physics and a PhD in planetary sciences.