Yvonne Brill

Yvonne Madelaine Brill, born as Yvonne Claeys ( born December 30, 1924 in Winnipeg, † March 27, 2013 in Princeton, New Jersey) was an American rocket engineer of Canadian origin. She developed including a new rocket engine, which became the standard for communication satellites.

Life and work

Yvonne Madelaine Brill was born the daughter of the carpenter August Claeys and his wife Julienne, born Carette, in the Canadian city of Winnipeg to the world. She grew up in the suburb of St. Vital. Her parents were originally from Belgium (Flanders) and had a relatively low level of education. Brill studied until 1945 Mathematics at the University of Manitoba. She then worked in California for the aircraft manufacturer Douglas Aircraft Company, where her special interest was the fuel. At the same time she obtained a Masters degree in chemistry at the University of Southern California.

During her studies, she met her future husband, who was two years older chemist William Franklin Brill († 2010). On May 11, 1951 it has been given a court in Los Angeles, the citizenship of the United States. On 15 December the same year she married William Brill. The marriage produced two sons and a daughter were born. The couple moved for professional reasons William Brill eastward to the vicinity of Princeton. From pregnancy with her first child late 1950s interrupted Yvonne Brill their full-time job as an engineer and was only an advisory capacity.

1966, Brill her career at RCA Astro Electronics again. The following year she developed the hydrazines Resistojet or Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster (EHT ), an Engine used in communications and observation satellites. The EHT heated the rocket fuel hydrazine and electrically characterized by a 30 percent increase in efficiency, which was achieved with the help of the additional heating of the fuel -burning components. This increase in efficiency enabled a reduction in the weight of satellites that previously required more fuel to keep itself in orbit. 1972 Brill let her patented dual thrust level monopropellant propulsion spacecraft system. The EHT 1983 for the first time used in a spacecraft of the RCA and has become an industrial standard that was used in communications satellites from companies such as General Electric, Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

In 1981, Brill worked for two years in the NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC in solid rocket technology. From 1986 she worked for the International Maritime Satellite Organization in London. In 1987 she was one of the few women of that time a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

2002 awarded the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Brill from the Wyld Propulsion Award. In 2010 she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. For their innovative improvements in rocket propulsion systems of geosynchronous and LEO communication satellites, she was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, which presented her with U.S. President Barack Obama on October 21, 2011 at the White House.

With 88 years Brill died in a hospital in Princeton breast cancer.