Specific contributions of Dr. Junkins in the area of navigation include the development of the first finite element gravity model for the earth’s gravity field for use in the inertial guidance systems for the Polaris missile and his pioneering research on automating topographic mapping from satellite remote sensing. He also developed the first algorithm suitable for on-board, real-time star pattern identification for spacecraft pointing navigation. This algorithm and its variants have been adopted for numerous space missions, including the STS 107 Columbia StarNav I mission last year, and the StarNav II EO-3 GIFTS mission planned for 2008.

He holds a patent (2001, co-authored with T. Pollock and D. Mortari) on the split field of view star tracker that is the basis for the StarNav II star tracker. The hardware developed by Junkins and co-workers has the potential to reduce the cost of star trackers by 50 percent. He also holds a patent (2001, co-authored with D. Hughes and H. Schaub) on the novel sensor underlying VisNav for six degrees of freedom relative navigation of two spacecraft to enable autonomous rendezvous and docking. This technology has been licensed for aerial refueling of UAVs.

Dr. Junkins received his P.h.D. at UCLA (1969). He is active on several boards at the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council and provides editorial services for several professional journals.