Geoffrey E. Perry

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(4 August 1927,

Braintree, Essex Braintree is a town and former civil parish in Essex, England. The principal settlement of Braintree District, it is located northeast of Chelmsford and west of Colchester. According to the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 41,634, ...

– 18 January 2000,

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) was a

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

teacher at Kettering Grammar School,

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, England who, together with his colleague Derek Slater, and students, deduced the existence of the previously-secret

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome ( rus, Космодром «Плесецк», r=Kosmodrom "Plesetsk", p=kəsmɐˈdrom plʲɪˈsʲet͡sk) is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200&n ...

in 1966 by analyzing the orbit of the

Kosmos 112 Kosmos 112 (russian: Космос 112 meaning ''Cosmos 112'') or Zenit-2 No.37 was a Soviet, first generation, low resolution, optical film-return reconnaissance satellite launched in 1966. A Zenit-2 spacecraft, Kosmos 112 was the thirty-sixth o ...

satellite. The ''

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'' published his discovery shortly before

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in 1966. Perry and his students (who formed the Kettering Group along with some other volunteers worldwide) continued their

satellite tracking A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...

work for a number of years, using only inexpensive

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

equipment and painstakingly using the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who d ...

to deduce the satellites' orbits. They were often able to deduce what various Soviet satellites were being used for, based on their

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ data collection, collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic data transmission, transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Gr ...

. This information was likely already known by Western intelligence agencies, although it was classified, meaning that the Kettering Group played an important role in making information about the Soviet space programme publicly available. Perry received an

in 1973, in the New Year Honours List. In 1974, he received the

Jackson-Gwilt Medal The Jackson-Gwilt Medal is an award that has been issued by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) since 1897. The original criteria were for the invention, improvement, or development of astronomical instrumentation or techniques; for achievement ...

of the

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. After retiring from teaching in 1984 he worked as a space analyst for the

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television network. He was married to Jean, and had a daughter, Isabel.

References

External links

Satellite Tracking Group Members

* ttp://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/jperry_obit_000120.html Obituary
Obituary

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perry, Geoffrey 1927 births 2000 deaths 20th-century British astronomers Schoolteachers from Essex Members of the Order of the British Empire