On 5 December 2021, the guidance, navigation, and control community lost one of its most influential and well-regarded figures, F. Landis Markley. The clear and rigorous body of work that Markley contributed to the field has been foundational to the development of the theory and practice of attitude determination, as well as many other areas of spacecraft dynamics and control. From 1974, when he left theoretical physics, through well past his retirement in 2010, Markley was a mentor and a friend to generations of students, co-workers, and colleagues in the community.
In memory of Markley, the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (JGCD) will dedicate a Virtual Collection in his honor. The focus of the collection is specifically targeted to aspects of aerospace estimation, dynamics, and control applications to which Markley contributed, with a particular focus on spacecraft attitude applications. Please consider submitting a paper to this Virtual Collection (instructions below).
Markley’s influence is observable throughout the practices of our profession. He was particularly prominent in the development of innovative extensions, analytical tools, and operational software for the application of Kalman filtering, batch techniques, and covariance analysis to attitude estimation. He is the author of many classic papers in spacecraft attitude estimation, dynamics, and control. Markley was one of the principal contributors to the book Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control (1978), which is a vital resource for practicing engineers to this day. In 2014, he was first author of the book Fundamentals of Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control, which has become essential to the education of many astronautical engineers. For this body of work, his peers elected him a Fellow of AIAA in 1998 and of the American Astronautical Society (AAS) in 2007. He was awarded the 1998 AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, the 2005 AAS Dirk Brouwer Award, and the 2008 AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Award.
At the Computer Sciences Corporation (1974–1978), the United States Naval Research Laboratory (1978–1985), and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1985–2010), Markley contributed to the designs of more than 20 space missions, most notably the Hubble Space Telescope, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, and the James Webb Space Telescope. His work on these missions earned him the 1998 Moe Schneebaum Award—Goddard’s highest engineering award, two NASA Exceptional Service Medals (1994, 2005), and recognition as a Goddard Senior Fellow in 2000.
To Participate
To ensure consideration for inclusion, please submit papers no later than 31 October 2022. Authors must select the Virtual Collection “F. Landis Markley Memorial” during submission. Both full-length papers and engineering notes are welcome.
The editors will decide whether a submitted manuscript is in scope for this Virtual Collection. It is strongly advised that authors contact the editors for this Virtual Collection (see below) before submission to ensure the paper content meets the requirements of the Virtual Collection. If a manuscript is deemed not in scope for the Virtual Collection, the author will be notified and the manuscript will be considered by JGCD as a regular submission.
Please review these access instructions on the expected scope for papers and notes, preparing a manuscript, and the required AIAA style and format.
Questions?
- For questions on the suitability of a manuscript and other questions related to the Virtual Collection, email the editors for this Virtual Collection: John L. Crassidis and Russell Carpenter.
- For general questions regarding JGCD, contact Ping Lu, Editor-in-Chief of JGCD.
- If you already have a manuscript under review by JGCD and would like to have it considered for the Virtual Collection, contact Dr. Lu with a copy of the request sent to Dr. Crassidis and Dr. Carpenter.