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6; Explorer 33 and 35; the lunar subsatellites

deployed by Apollo 15 and 16; International

Sun-Earth Explorer 1, 2, and 3; Wind, the

Solar TErrestrial Relations Observatory

(STEREO) and the Time History of Events and

Macroscale Interactions during Substorms

(THEMIS) missions; Mars Global Surveyor

and Lunar Prospector; and Giotto and Cluster.

Bob’s greatest achievement was probably the

Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic

Imager (RHESSI), a spacecraft for which he

was the principal investigator. This Small

Explorer mission was launched in 2002 to

explore the basic physical processes

responsible for particle acceleration and the

explosive release of energy during solar flares.

This was achieved through imaging and

spectroscopic observations of bremsstrahlung

hard X-ray/gamma-ray continuum and gamma-

ray lines produced by the energetic electrons

and ions, respectively. RHESSI also made

important astrophysical observations. These

included the detection of the gamma-ray

emission line of the short-lived radionuclide 26

Al created in supernova explosions, strong

polarization in a cosmic gamma-ray burst,

high-resolution, hard X-ray images of the Crab

nebula.

Even after retiring as director of SSL, Bob

remained an active researcher. He was deeply

involved in the development of new spacecraft

and balloon missions at the time of his death.

His innovative modular microsatellite known

as Cubesat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons, and

MAgnetic fields (CINEMA) was launched on

13 September, 2012.

His new instrument, the Focusing Optics X ray

Solar Imager (FOXSI) was successfully tested

on a balloon flight on 2 November, 2012.

Finally, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatiles

EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, for which he

served as the deputy principal investigator, is

scheduled to launch later this year.

Bob received many honours and awards during

his long and distinguished career. He was

elected to the National Academy of Sciences of

United States of America in 2006. His election

citation reads: “Lin is a world-renowned

experimentalist in space science. Through

numerous, innovative instruments that have

flown on NASA missions, he has revealed the

behaviour of electrons and ions accelerated by

the Sun, and detected the accompanying X-ray

and gamma-ray emissions.”

He was also a fellow of the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences and the

American Geophysical Union. He was a

recipient of COSPAR-Chinese Academy of

Sciences Jeoujang Jaw Award and the George

Ellery Hale Prize of American Astronomical

Society’s Solar Physics Division. He also

received a Docteur Honoris Causa de

l’Université de Toulouse in France.

Bob Lin is survived by his wife, Lily Lin of

Berkley, California; and his stepson, Linus

Sun, of New York, New York. The SSL is

establishing a graduate scholarship in his

honour.

David H. Smith, Executive Secretary, U.S.

National Committee for COSPAR

Jorge Sahade (1915-2012),

Leading Argentinian Astronomer

Academician (in several academies) Professor

(at many universities), Dr. Jorge Sahade was a

man who took many important decisions

during his almost one hundred years of life,

most of them leading to important results. Late

in 2012 he made, as was his trademark, one

last important decision. He decided that he was

finally tired, tired of living one of the most

active lives any person can imagine living. He

turned off the computer that contains his

unfinished memoirs and simply prepared to die

of natural causes, something that occurred on

18 December 2012.

Jorge Sahade was born in 1915 in Alta Gracia,

Province of Córdoba, Argentina. He first

obtained the Degree of Surveyor at the

Universidad de Córdoba in 1937 and then

moved to La Plata to study astronomy, getting

his Doctorate in Astronomy, the third conferred

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by the Universidad de La Plata in 1943.That

same year he moved to the USA to work at

Yerkes Observatory of the University of

Chicago where he stayed until 1946. Upon his

return to Argentina he went to Córdoba

University to take a position at the Córdoba

Observatory and also as a Professor in the

School of Engineering, a position that he held

during his tenure as Director of the

Observatory from 1953 to 1955.

Late in 1955 he was awarded a Guggenheim

Foundation fellowship at the Astronomy

Department of UC Berkeley where he was to

spend one of the most productive periods of his

scientific career, renewing a very close

scientific relationship that began at Yerkes with

Otto Struve. Many fundamental papers on the

spectroscopy of binary star systems were

written in this period, including the one

describing the still controversial “Struve-

Sahade effect.”

Even though a successful professional life was

certain in the USA, he always felt that many

things awaited him in Argentina where it was

his duty to contribute to the development of

astronomy in his homeland.

By 1958 he had become Professor at La Plata

Observatory and Head of the Astrophysics II

Department, becoming the observatory’s

Director in 1968, the first Dean of the School

of Exact Sciences of La Plata University in

1969 and then the first Director (1968) of

IAFE, the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del

Espacio in Buenos Aires, an institute that was

his creation and later grew to be one of the

most productive in Argentina and Latin

America. Last, but by no means least, he

became in 1991 the first President of the then

newly created civilian space agency of

Argentina, the Comisión Nacional de

Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

At the international level Jorge Sahade was

greatly involved in the IAU where he was

President of Commission 29 (Stellar Spectra),

1964-67, Vice President of the Executive

Council (1967-73), and its President from 1985

to 1988. With regard to COSPAR, he made

important contributions to the work of several

of its commissions and panels for over a

decade (1970/80), leading to the creation of the

Panel on Space Research in Developing

Countries (PSRDC) of which he was the first

Chairman. Ironically, it was another

Argentinian, myself, who last chaired the

PSRDC before it was dissolved during the

latest COSPAR reorganization.

Jorge Sahade’s list of honours and awards is

far too numerous to be listed here, as are his

memberships in many academies and his

honorary professorships all over the world.

However, an impressive reminder of his

tireless drive and immense devotion to

astronomy at large, and Argentine astronomy

in particular, is the “Jorge Sahade” 2.5-meter

telescope located in El Leoncito, Province of

San Juan, dedicated to him in 1996 and the

largest telescope on Argentine soil.

Marcos E. Machado, Argentinian National

Representative to COSPAR