Anthony (Tony) Freeman received his B.Sc,. and Ph.D from the University of Manchester, England. He worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 37.5 years before retiring in April 2024. In his long career he has had several leadership roles, including as section manager for Systems Engineering and Mission Architecture. He had the lead role in both Earth Science and Planetary Science formulation and has been involved in the formulation of more than 45 flight projects. As head of JPL’s Innovation Foundry, which includes JPL’s Concurrent Engineering Design Team, Team X, he championed the infusion of SmallSat and CubeSat technologies into JPL missions. He retired from full-time work in April 2024 as the lead for planetary science formulation at JPL, now serves as a Senior Technical advisor to UCLA’s Space Institute, and a Senior Technical Advisor to JPL.
As the most senior formulation leader at JPL, with experience spanning multiple directorates, he had a proven track record of success in building programs consisting of directed and competed NASA missions. He has managed concept development and successful proposal campaigns, led science mission proposals that received the highest possible evaluation, and overseen strategic road-mapping efforts. He mentored most of JPL’s other senior formulation leads.
In a technical career spanning 44 years, he has authored over 300 original research contributions, and is still active in publishing his ideas. He has also taught many classes throughout his career, for Caltech, USC, UCLA and other institutions, sharpening his own skills and passing them on to others in the process. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers for his work on the end-to-end calibration of Synthetic Aperture Radar systems. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for calibration of SIR-C mission data in 1995 and the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for his work on Earth Science Mission Formulation in 2011. In 2024 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services towards UK/US relations in Space and Earth Science.
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