Eugene R. Ganssle

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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

Eugene R. Ganssle spent his 44-year career designing aircraft and spacecraft at Grumman, Fairchild, and RCA/GE. His aircraft experience took place at Grumman at which he performed structure design of the F9F-6 Cougar, XF10F Jaguar, and F11F Tiger fighters for the U.S. Navy plus the Army's Mohawk and the commercial Gulfstream.

His space activities began with the conceptual design of the Apollo Command Module at Grumman, followed by the Pegasus Meteoroid Technology Satellite at Fairchild. Three of these 3200 lb. spacecraft were launched in 1965. They were the first practical payloads ever launched by the Saturn launch vehicle, and, at that time, were the heaviest and the biggest (96 feet) ever launched anywhere.

At RCA/GE Ganssle focused on the conceptual design of spacecraft in the pre-contractual phase. The individual satellites for which he led the configuration, structure, and thermal control designs are too numerous to list, but they comprise every new scientific, communication, weather, earth observation, and planetary mission for which RCA/GE competed.