| Date: | 2019-02-08 18:36:49 | |
| Sender: | ”Noll, Carey E. (GSFC-61A0)” <carey.e.noll@nasa.gov> | |
| Subject: | [SLR-Mail] No.2561: Announcement on the passing of Richard Biancale | |
| Author: | unknown | |
| Content: | Dear Colleagues, It is with profound sadness that we inform you of the passing of Richard Biancale on February 4, 2019. After retiring from the French Space Centre (CNES) last autumn, he had joined the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Germany. He passed away from a heart attack while skiing. After graduating from the Paris High School of Civil Engineering (1975), Richard got a Master of Oceanography in 1977, a PhD in Astronomy at the Pierre & Marie Curie Paris University in 1978, and his Habilitation from this university in 2006. His professional career began in Germany during his PhD as assistant in space geodesy in the Technical University of Munich where he worked with Prof. Ch. Reigber on precise satellite orbits and station positioning. He then went to the Astronomical Observatory of Sao Paulo in 1979-80 where he worked on the analytical theory of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter in the team of Prof. S. Ferraz-Mello. In 1981 he joined the Deutsches Geodtisches ForschungsInstitut (DGFI) in Munich to work again under the supervision of Ch. Reigber on the ESA satellite mission project POPSAT dedicated to Earth kinematics studies. In 1982 he moved to the Centre de Recherches en Godynamique et Astromtrie (CERGA) in Grasse in the team of Prof. F. Barlier to prepare the scientific processing of the data of the ESA clock synchronization experiment LASSO on board the SIRIO-2 satellite (unsuccessful due to launcher failure). A year later he joined the CNES centre in Toulouse in the department of Satellite Geodesy supervised by Michel Lefebvre, to work on the definition of the new DORIS positioning system and on the TOPEX/Poseidon altimetric mission. Since 1984, he was in the core of the French-German teams cooperating on the Earth gravity field modeling with G. Balmino. In 1991 he was visiting fellow at GSFC/NASA (in the Geodynamic branch, with F. Lemoine, in Greenbelt) and CNES representative in the framework of the joint TOPEX/Poseidon mission. He became the chief of the Terrestrial and Planetary Geodetic Department of CNES in 1992 under the direction of G. Balmino, then took the position of head of the Service of Geodesy of CNES in 2005. In the meantime Richard had been the CNES scientific manager of the STELLA laser geodetic satellite (1993), and he had spent one year (2001-2002) at GFZ in Potsdam in the framework of the CHAMP and GRACE missions. In addition to his managerial responsibilities at CNES, Richard had the directorship of the Bureau Gravimtrique International (BGI) in 2006-2007, he was Chairman of the geodesy section of the Comit National Franais de Godsie et Gophysique (2008-2012), then Vice-Chairman of the geodesy section of the Comit National Franais de Godsie et Gophysique for IUGG (2012-2018). From 2008 to 2017 he was the Executive Director of the Groupe de Recherche de Godsie Spatiale (GRGS), a French group which gathers around 120 scientists from 10 French organizations involved in space geodesy research studies. Above all we can say that Richard Biancale and GFZ were inseparably tied by a very strong and long lasting scientific collaboration. Richard was the CNES scientific manager of the STAR accelerometer on board the CHAMP satellite and thus significantly contributed to the analysis of these innovative observations of non-gravitational forces. He, and his team at CNES and GFZs Section 1.2 Global Geomonitoring and Gravity Field closely worked together on improving standards and background modeling for static and time variable EIGEN (European Improved Gravity model of the Earth by New Techniques) gravity field models. At the same time, Richard was a highly active member of the European GRACE and GRACE-FO Science Team. Richard, and GRGS and GFZ colleagues also contributed to reach the requirements of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) for a stable Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF). A recent joint project proposed the European Geodetic Reference Antenna in Space (E-GRASP) to the ESA Earth Explorer Call 9 where Richard was the Science PI. Since September 2018, after his retirement from CNES, he worked at GFZs outer branch in Oberpfaffenhofen to derive daily mass transport models from GRACE and GRACE-FO mission data. Richard was the author or co-author of many publications in refereed scientific journals, he taught geodesy for more than 20 years in several engineering schools and universities and at training courses (GRGS Summer Schools, Brazilian Summer Schools, EuroSAE, ), and supervised 16 PhD students and post-docs. We will deeply miss him, as excellent scientist, brilliant manager, sympathetic colleague and a good friend. Our thoughts are with his wife and his four children. On behalf of GRGS: Georges Balmino, Jean-Michel Lemoine, Stphane Bourgogne On behalf of GFZ: Harald Schuh, Frank Flechtner, Christoph Frste |