History
The Jicamarca Radio Observatory was built in 1960-61 by the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory (CRPL) of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). This lab later became part of the Environmental Science Service Administration (ESSA) and then the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The project was led by Dr. Kenneth L. Bowles, who is known as the “father of JRO”.
Although the last dipole was installed on April 27, 1962, the first incoherent scatter measurements at Jicamarca were made in early August 1961, using part of the total area projected and without the transmitter's final stage. In 1969 ESSA turned the Observatory over to the Instituto Geofísico del Perú (IGP), which had been cooperating with CRPL during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957-58 and had been intimately involved with all aspects of the construction and operation of Jicamarca. ESSA and then NOAA continued to provide some support to the operations for several years after 1969, in major part due to the efforts of the informal group called “Jicamarca Amigos” led by Prof. William E. Gordon. Prof. Gordon invented the incoherent scatter radar technique in 1958.
A few years later the National Science Foundation began partially supporting the operation of Jicamarca, first through NOAA, and since 1979 through Cornell University via Cooperative Agreements. In 1991, a nonprofit Peruvian organization—called Ciencia Internacional (CI) -- was created to hire most observatory staff members and to provide services and goods to the IGP to run the Observatory.
Since 1969, the great majority of the radar components have been replaced and modernized with “home made” hardware and software, designed and built by Peruvian engineers and technicians. More than 60 Ph.D. students, many from US institutions and 15 from Peru, have done their research in association with Jicamarca.
Read more about this topic: Jicamarca Radio Observatory
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)