Acton, Loren, 1936-
Dates
- Existence: March 7, 1936
Biography
Dr. Loren W. Acton was born in Lewiston, Montana on March 7, 1936. In 1959, he earned a bachelor of science in Engineering Physics from Montana State University in Bozeman and in 1965 he earned a PhD in Astro-Geophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
While attending the University of Colorado, Acton worked at the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory and the Naval Research Laboratory. After completing his doctorate, he continued working with Lockheed Martin Corporation on experiments and instruments being flown on rockets and satellites, including the Orbiting Solar Observatory 8 or OSO-8. Another notable experiment Acton worked on was the Solar Optical Universal Polarimeter (SOUP) which was brought on Spacelab 2.
In 1985, Loren Acton was selected as a payload specialist for STS-51F/Spacelab 2, the 19th flight of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Space Shuttle Program. It was the first mission to operate the Spacelab Instrument Pointing System (IPS) and carried 13 major experiments in astronomy, astrophysics, and life sciences.
After Spacelab 2, Dr. Acton worked on the YOHKHO mission, a collaboration between NASA and the Japanese space program, launching a Solar X-Ray Telescope in 1991. As a result of this work, Dr. Acton was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government in 2017.
Dr. Acton returned to Montana State University as a faculty member in the Department of Physics and created MSU's Solar Physics Group, which works on projects in conjunction with NASA and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Acton has retired and gained Professor Emeritus status at Montana State University's Department of Physics.