Howard T. Wright, EE’56,

Howard T. Wright, EE’56,was born in Brooklyn, New York.  He received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from The Cooper Union in 1956. He initially worked at the Grumman Aerospace Corporation working on radar systems for the E2 surveillance aircraft.  later he worked as lead test engineer on Grumman’s Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) whose oxygen supply saved the Apollo 13 crew.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hired Howard Wright for work on the Viking Mars Landers. Howard enjoyed a long and exciting career at NASA where he became a part of the Senior Executive Service.  Howard was involved in many projects for space applications at NASA, including serving as the NASA Deputy Director for the National Aerospace Plane Program (NASP) at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio. His final assignment was at NASA headquarters as Program Manager of the highly successful international CRAF Cassini-Huygens Program which was a joint effort of NASA, The European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. This program launched satellites that reached and orbited Saturn, sending photographs and other data back to NASA.

Howard died on January 18, 2018.

Publications:

National Aero-Space Plane Technology Development Overview, AIAA PAPER 89-5003 , NASA, July 1 1981.  Link to Abstract

 References

Obituary  link

Together, Brilliant Men Brings Apollo 13 Crew Home: Analysis. New York Daily News. April 11, 2015.  Link

Meltzer, Michael. The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn: An Historic Mission to the Ringed Planet. Springer, 2015.  Link