Anthony Spear is an American

space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by robotic spacec ...

project manager A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined f ...

most notable for leading the

Mars Pathfinder ''Mars Pathfinder'' (''MESUR Pathfinder'') is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight, wheeled robot ...

mission for

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

in 1996. He retired from JPL in 1998. He is now seeking the

Google Lunar X Prize The Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP), sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0, was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be th ...

with Red Whittaker,

Astrobotic Astrobotic Technology is an American privately held company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of w ...

, and

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, where he received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1962.

Career

After graduating from high school, Spear spent four years in the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

attending radio school and working in radio repair on jet fighters. He then went on to get his B.S. from Carnegie Mellon, and then an

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. Spear worked at JPL in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

while taking classes toward his master's degree. He also did graduate work in the Engineering Executive Program at the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and earned a master's of engineering. Spear has held many different jobs since beginning his career at JPL in 1962. He first started out in Deep Space Telecommunication System Engineering where he was involved in the design and development of NASA's

Mariner program The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the in ...

missions from 1964 to 1973. He also helped design the lander-orbiter relay communications link for the

Viking program The ''Viking'' program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, ''Viking 1'' and ''Viking 2'', which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars f ...

mission in 1976. From 1975 to 1979, he began to manage the development and implementation of the microwave instruments for the NASA

SEASAT Seasat was the first Earth-orbiting satellite designed for remote sensing of the Earth's oceans and had on board one of the first spaceborne synthetic-aperture radar (SAR). The mission was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of global satelli ...

mission, including the first synthetic aperture imaging radar to fly in space. For the next 11 years, Spear worked in various capacities for the

Magellan probe The ''Magellan'' spacecraft was a robotic space probe launched by NASA of the United States, on May 4, 1989, to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic-aperture radar and to measure the planetary gravitational field. The ''Magellan'' pro ...

mission. After leading JPL's initial studies of NASA's "faster, better, cheaper" fixed-priced, low-cost, quick-reaction Discovery program missions, Tony Spear began working as the project manager for the Mars Pathfinder mission. He managed the landing of the ''Pathfinder'' shuttle and the ''Sojourner'' rover with astounding successes. Said

Daniel S. Goldin Daniel Saul Goldin (born July 23, 1940) served as the 9th and longest-tenured Administrator of NASA from April 1, 1992, to November 17, 2001. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and also served under Presidents Bill Clinton and Geor ...

of Spear, "Tony Spear was a legendary project manager at JPL and helped make Mars Pathfinder the riveting success that it was." Minor planet 6487 Tonyspear is named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spear, Tony Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American aerospace engineers NASA people Carnegie Mellon University alumni University of Southern California alumni United States Air Force airmen Mars Pathfinder