'Next-Generation RTGs for NASA' Paper Wins Award

David Woerner’s paper on “Next-Generation RTGs for NASA” won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2017 Aerospace Power Systems Best Paper Award. The announcement was made during the AIAA Propulsion & Energy Forum in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 9-11, 2018.

David Woerner has more than 30 years’ experience as a systems engineer and manager at JPL, including as the MMRTG office manager for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. He is presently leading the engineering of an enhanced MMRTG and is the RTG integration manager and deputy program and planning manager for NASA’s Radioisotope Power System Program.

Woerner has worked at JPL on such missions as Galileo, Cassini, Magellan, Mars Pathfinder and MSL.

He was the chief engineer of the avionics for the Mars Pathfinder mission that successfully landed on Mars on July 4, 1996. He is the chair of the board of directors for the IEEE Aerospace Conferences. He has won numerous NASA awards including earning NASA’s Exceptional Service and Exceptional Achievement Medals.