The Institute of Navigation awards Mark Psiaki ’79 *87
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Mark Psiaki, professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, was presented with the Institute of Navigation’s (ION’s) 2013 Tycho Brahe Award. He was recognized for his contributions to the theory and practice of spacecraft attitude and orbit determination and to the advancement of GNSS algorithms for satellite navigation.
He was also named a 2014 fellow in the satellite division by ION for contributions to GNSS signal processing, software receivers, ionospheric scintillation modeling, and for satellite orbit and attitude determination.
Over the course of his career, Psiaki has provided filtering/estimation algorithms or hardware to various spacecraft. These include some NASA satellites and NASA sounding rockets. In addition, he was head of the Cornell team that developed a sequence of real-time GNSS software receivers that led to the dual-frequency CASES space weather monitor.
Psiaki holds an AB in physics and a Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering, both received from Princeton in 1979 and 1987, respectively. After his studies, Psiaki was employed at RCA Astro-Electronics in the TIROS program. He has been at Cornell since 1986 and spent two sabbatical leaves with the Aerospace Engineering Faculty of the Technion in Israel. Psiaki is also the co-founder of Coherent Navigation, Inc., a developer of services and solutions focused on Iridium navigation and GPS security.