Theodore Fritz

Professor Theodore A. Fritz works in the area of planetary magnetospheres and possible Sun-Earth relations. His particular research interests include energetic charged particles, their composition, and the mechanisms by which they are transported and energized within magnetospheres. His present focus has been on the role of the Earth’s magnetospheric cusp region as an entry point for solar wind plasma into the magnetosphere and its probable energization there to energies associated with the extraterrestial ring current. He has participated either as a Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator in about 18 spaceflight projects such as the Application Technology Satellite (ATS-6), the International Sun- Earth Explorer 1&2 (ISEE 1&2), the NASA Galileo mission orbiting Jupiter, the NASA Global Geospace Science (GGS) Polar satellite mission, and the joint European Space Agency/NASA four satellite Cluster mission. In addition to these ongoing data analysis efforts, he is involved in the development of instrumentation for use in space to measure these energetic charged particles. Professor Fritz has joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Presently Professor Fritz is leading a group of engineering faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students designing and fabricating a Loss Cone Imager for a US Air Force scientific satellite project know as the Demonstration and Science Experiment (DSX).