Bob Citron - Early Career

Early Career

Citron worked for the Smithsonian Institution for 17 years, establishing satellite tracking stations around the world, and creating and managing scientific field research projects. While at the Smithsonian he built and managed astrophysical research observatories in the USA, Spain, Norway, Ethiopia, South Africa, and India (1959–1968) and founded the Smithsonian Institution Center for Short-lived Phenomena (CSLP) in 1968. The purpose of the Smithsonian Satellite Tracking Program was to track satellites to determine their precision orbits in order to better understand the Earth’s atmosphere and to better define the geodesy of planet Earth. Citron created and managed the Smithsonian Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) program for NASA during the Apollo Program (1968–1972) and established the NASA/Smithsonian Skylab Earth Observing Program (1973–1974) during the post-Apollo period. He established a global Student Environmental monitoring network (1974), involving high school students from 20 countries, to report on significant environmental events (1974).

While at the Smithsonian, Citron was a consultant to a number of United Nations organizations including UNESCO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). As a consultant to these organizations he was involved in helping to define the goals and operations of UNESCO’s “Man and the Biosphere” Programme (1973) and he helped develop requirements for UNEP’s “Global Environmental Monitoring System” (1974). Citron also participated in a number of other United Nations programs involved with global environmental monitoring and assessing the human impact on planet Earth (1972–1975).