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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Lisa Mietz

Donald Mietz was raised in Barrington IL, where he graduated from Barrington Consolidated
High School, and went on to earn his Bachelor of Science and Engineering Degree from
Purdue University with a focus in acoustics and vibrations.
After a short stint at the Chrysler Corporation, Donald was employed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) where he worked as a environmental requirements engineer, initially focused
on defining acoustic and vibrational requirements for the Galileo Orbiter and several smaller
projects. Later was named the Reliability and Quality Engineer for Comet Rendezvous Asteroid
Fly By mission (later to be renamed the Cassini Mission).
In 1985 Mr. Mietz joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he spent 32 years working
in and eventually managing the Space Instrumentation Engineering Group responsible for the
design and manufacture of custom scientific instruments for satellite missions. The primary
customer of the group National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) to provide instrumentation
supporting the Space Nuclear Detonation Detection Program. The group in partnership with
several scientific groups designed built and tested custom instrumentation for the Advanced
Radec II system and several systems flown on every GPS satellite. In Addition the group
developed several instruments for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Specific programs that Mr. Mietz supported include the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics
(ISTP), the Genesis, and the ChemCam missions (which was aboard the Mars Rover).
Donald accepted a three year change of station assignment at the NNSA Office of Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development as a technical advisor in Washington DC.
He completed his career in 2017 working 5 years for the Aerospace Corporation again
supporting this same office