Max Mutchler '90 M.S. has been working on the Hubble Space Telescope for over 22 years -- its entire mission. He was hired just two weeks before the launch of Hubble in 1990, and just a few months before completing his M.S. degree in space sciences at Florida Tech. Thanks to the proximity of FIT to the Kennedy Space Center, he was able to witness the launch of Hubble - and his career - from the VIP site at Banana Creek.
He is a research and instrument scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He manages a group of 35 analysts and scientists, and he continues to make a range of contributions to the Hubble mission.
Mr. Mutchler is an expert on Hubble's cameras. He is a member of the Hubble Heritage team, which has produced many of the iconic images that Hubble is famous for. He also specializes in observations of Solar System objects, often in support of planetary missions such as New Horizons (en route to Pluto) and Dawn (currently exploring the Asteroid Belt). He is a member of a team that discovered several new moons of Pluto, including one last July. Asteroid "6815 Mutchler" was named in honor of his role in these discoveries. This work was featured as the cover story for the August 2006 edition of Florida Tech Today.
He is also involved in a range of educational outreach activities, which has recently included citizen science, tactile images with Braille captions, and the first-ever astronomical star party on the South Lawn of the White House.
Florida Tech - M.S. in Space Sciences '90
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