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MARIJA STROJNIK
Rode’s Hewlett-Packard employee ID.
Technical museum of Slovenia. Photo: Nebojša Tejić, STA
.
ALES STROJNIK
CASSINI MISSION
She is best known for developing an auton-
omous technique for optical navigation, which
remains one of the fundamental methods for
determining location and orientation on and
around Earth. With the help of star charts, an
intelligent CCD camera, and a computer cal-
culating directions based on an algorithm she
developed, spacecraft became independent of
Earth-based calculations. The technology was
first deployed on the Cassini mission to Saturn.
A LEM 5 electron microscope, built by Iskra
in 1969 after Aleš Strojnik had left to work in
Australia. It is the successor to the successful
LEM 4 series, which Iskra started producing in
1966. Technical Museum of Slovenia. Photo: Irena Marušič.
102
For this invention, the International Society of
Optics and Photonics be- stowed on her the pres-
tigious George W. Goddard Award in 1996. She
became the first woman to receive this accolade.
Property of Marija Strojnik. Photo: Tamino Petelinšek.