Jacques L'Heureux

I was born in Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada in 1939 and spent my childhood in the adjacent town of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. I attended the École Pierre Boucher (Primary/Secondary School) and then moved on to the École Secondaire L'Assomption (High School) where I graduated in 1957.

After receiving a Bachelor of Sciences (Physics) degree from the Université de Montréal in 1961, I went to the University of Chicago for graduate studies. In 1962, I received a Master of Science degree in Physics and a Ph.D in Physics (Astrophysics) in 1966.

My scientific career then took me to the University of Arizona (1968-1978), then back to the University of Chicago (1978-1990), then to the University of Delaware (1990-1999) and finally with Universities Space Research Association (USRA) (1999-2004), a non-profit association in Columbia MD where I was Director of University Relations.

I retired from USRA in 2004 and in 2008, I moved to Warson Woods, MO, a suburb of Saint Louis with my wife Maryann.

I now do more travel, photography, genealogy, web hosting and design, some sports, more exercise, as well as spending more time with the children and grandchildren. Scientifically, I have been keeping up to date by attending various seminars and colloquia at Washington University and keeping up with Astronomy and Space Research via the web. See my family website more details.

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1991. Went to Antarctica in January to service the Bartol Neutron Monitors located at the McMurdo Station on Ross Island near the coast and to do the same for a second set of monitors located in the Amundsen-Scott Research Station [live camera] at the South Pole. Later that spring, went to Thule Air Base, Greenland to do the same on the Thule monitors 

1993-1994. Proposed to fly POEMS on a Small Explorer mission (SMEX). We were one of the four instruments selected for a one year Definition Study but were not selected for flight. 

1995-1996. With only minor changes in the collaboration, we again proposed for a Medium Explorer mission (MIDEX), were one ot the 13 proposals selected for step-2 but failed to be selected for flight.

1996-1997. POEMS was again reproposed for a flight on a Small Explorer (SMEX) mission. Our proposal was ranked as Category 1 but was not approved for  flight. 

1993-1998. Instrument Manager the Advanced Composition Explorer Magnetometer Instrument (ACE/MAG) with Norman Ness as the Principal Investigator. This twin magnetometer instrument built by the GSFC has been launched on ACE on August 25, 1997 from the Kennedy Space Center. The payload is managed by CalTech with Ed Stone as the Principal Investigator. For real-time data from the MAG instrument, go to the NOAA Real Time Solar Wind Data and click on MAG.

1992-1999. Manager for the Bartol's Computer Facilities which consisted of a cluster of 20 VAXes and Alphas running OpenVMS, 5 DEC ULTRIX machines, three Alpha-NT servers and 25 or so PCs and Macs linked to the cluster.

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1979-1990. Research Associate at the University of Chicago and Co-Investigator and Program Manager for the Cosmic Ray Nuclei (CRN) instrument successfully flown in August of 1985 on the Spacelab-II mission on board the nineteenth flight of a Space Shuttle. Our instrument was on board the Challenger on its second to last  flight (STS-51F) before its fatal flight in January of 1986 (STS-51L). Launched from the Kennedy Space Center for a 7 day mission with a crew of seven, it was controlled from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

My colleagues on this project were Peter Meyer, Dietrich Müller and Simon Swordy. One Ph.D. degree was awarded on this project to John Grunsfeld, now a US astronaut whose has already four flights under his belt. Several publications resulted from this project. 

There were talks about a reflight of the CRN instrunent and the proposed mission was called DarkSky. Because of the two year gap after the Challenger accident and to give priority to instruments that had not flown even once, the DarkSky mission was eventually cancelled.

1969-1979. Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Arizona where I worked with C. Y. (Charlie) Fan and K. C. (John) Hsieh on a neutral particle analyzer (the predecessor ot HENA on IMAGE) and a balloon instrument in collaboration with George Gloeckler at the University of Maryland. Our successful flight was from Palestine, Texas in 1973. My undergraduate student on this project was Neil Gehrels who is now Head of the Gamma Ray, Cosmic Ray and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Branch at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

I also collaborated with Dieter Hovestadt from the Max-Plank Institute in Garching on a gamma ray burst detector that was flown on ISEE-1 launched on October 22, 1977. 

1966-1969. Research Associate at the University of Chicago working with Peter Meyer and C. Y. (Charlie) Fan building and testing the Electron Detector instrument that was part of the OGO-5 satellite. launched on March 4, 1968. This was perfect follow up to my thesis work deriving from balloon flights from from Fort Churchill, Canada. 

1962-1966. Graduate student of Professor Peter Meyer (Ph.D. 1966). Thesis title: "The Primary Cosmic Ray Electron Spectrum Near Solar Minimum," published in Astrophys. J. 148, 399 (1967). Our group in Chicago did the pioneering work on electrons and positrons in the cosmic radiation. See the Electron-Positron bibliography. Data was collected at balloon altitudes for five consecutive summers on flights launched from Fort Churchill, Manitoba. One summer student who helped me in 1965 was Paul Evenson, now at the Bartol Research Institute.

1961-1962. Graduate student at the University of Chicago working on Master of Physics degree which I received in December 1962 and Research Assistant with Professor Peter Meyer in the Enrico Fermi Institute. I was supervised by Robbie Vogt, the first graduate student of Professor Meyer.

1957-1961. Student at the Université de Montréal in the College of Sciences where I received a Bachelor of Science (Physics) in 1961.

1939-1957. I was born in Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada and spent my childhood in the neighborhood town of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. I attended the École Pierre Boucher (Primary School) and then moved on to l'École Secondaire L'Assomption (High School) where I graduated in 1957.

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• Warson Woods, MO and St. Louis - Where we now live
• Universities Space Research Association (USRA) - My employer from 1999-2004
• University of Arizona - Where I worked from 1969-1978
• University of Delaware - Where I worked from 1990-1999
• University of Chicago - Where I did my graduate studies 1961-1969
• Université de Montréal - Where I did my undergraduate studies 1957-1961
• École Secondaire L'Assomption - My High School
• NASA - Good way to access other NASA Centers
• Today's Space Weather
• Washington University - Neaby university where I have colleagues