James Gilbert Baker

James Gilbert Baker ( born November 11, 1914 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA; † 29 June 2005 in Bedford, New Hampshire, USA) is the developer of the satellite camera Baker - Nunn and other optical systems for the aerospace industry.

After a year of service in the Second World War, he received his doctorate in 1942 at the Harvard College Observatory in Astronomy and tested and designed lenses for aerial cameras of the Army and Remote Sensing. One of his superiors in the U.S. Army referred to him as " the most versatile optical designer known to this command. "

After 1945, Baker worked for the Air Force Photographic Laboratory, for Perkin -Elmer, Eastman Kodak, and finally at Boston University ( Optical Research Laboratory, BUORL ). From 1955 he developed almost all lenses of U.S. aerial reconnaissance. In addition to camera systems, the U-2, he was also responsible for the appearance of Samos satellites. For NASA, 1966-67 was a special version of Samos camera for photographic exploration of the moon and the selection of the Apollo landing sites.

In the 1950s, Dr. Baker turned to purely astronomical topics and has published over Schmidt- Cassegrain telescopes and a Super Schmidt camera for the observation of meteors. Together with the mechanic Joseph Nunn 1957, he developed the Baker - Nunn camera, the multi-axis system should be handed to the satellite for the first time. The look was created with computer assistance, which in those days was a pioneering work.

The " Baker - Nunn " was a contribution of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO ) for the IGY in 1957/58 ( International Geophysical Year ) and was used for determination of the orbit of the first Russian and U.S. satellites, starting already with Sputnik 1 and Explorer series.

Through the bright optics (1:1, 50 cm), the technique of Filmanpressung and tracking, the camera was extremely accurate and could even satellites beyond the freiäugigen visibility track ( weaker than stars 6.Größe ). About 20 tons of heavy cameras were produced and served next to the orbit determination of the differential Orbit Improvement Program ( DOI ) of the SAO also satellite geodesy. In the early 1960s, the project of a world network was tested, the accuracy of some meters reached with a dozen globally distributed satellite stations - at that time a quality leap for Geodesy by almost a factor of 10

He received the Medal for Merit in 1948, at that time the highest civilian award of the USA.