= Bill Pickering (rocket scientist)
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{title2=1910–2004}
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= William Hayward Pickering
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{synonym}
= William H. Pickering
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{synonym}
= Bill Pickering
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{synonym}
<Bill Pickering (rocket scientist)> was an <electrical engineer> whose work connected electronic instrumentation with robotic space exploration. His experience designing <telemetry> equipment brought him to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he later served as director from 1954 to 1976.<William H. Pickering in the JPL directors' biographies>[Career and JPL directorship]{ref}
During that period, JPL participated in the launch of <Explorer 1> and developed spacecraft for studying the Moon and planets. The <Ranger program> returned close-up lunar images and the <Surveyor program> achieved soft landings. Those missions illustrate the coupled engineering problem: an instrument must make a useful measurement, and the spacecraft must control its operation and communicate the result across a large distance.<William H. Pickering in the JPL directors' biographies>[Explorer I, Ranger, Surveyor and planetary missions]{ref}
\Image[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect/file/Pickering_with_Mariner_4_model.jpg?width=260]
{title=Portrait of <Bill Pickering (rocket scientist)>}
{description=NASA/JPL-Caltech. Public domain (NASA). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-USGov-NASA[Source usage terms], via Wikimedia Commons.}
{source=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pickering_with_Mariner_4_model.jpg}
{width=260}
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