Raggio, Carl.

Carl Raggio attended Alhambra, California schools and graduated in 1946, and then attended John Muir College until 1949. He became associated with the California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in 1951. In 1953, he was awarded a scholarship to Northrop Aeronautical Institute. He completed his studies in 1955 and returned to JPL. He became engaged in the deep space program as a design engineer at JPL during the beginning of its involvement in spacecraft research, development, and design in the late 1950's. He was interested in high-speed solid fuel rockets used in the Explorer and Pioneer spacecraft.

During his 38 years at JPL, Raggio was credited with three inventions: a Steering System for Solid Propellant Motors, Spatial Antenna Structures, and a Separation Joint. On January 13, 1961, the Design Section, under his leadership, developed a proposal for a Universal Spacecraft Assembly (USA). The major objectives in the USA study were to achieve simplicity and versatility and eliminate redundant structure, requiring every possible part to perform more than one function. It was believed that spacecraft configuration had become too complex, particularly on Ranger. Because of his experience on Explorer, Pioneer, Ranger, and Mariner A, this simple application concept would be considered for Mariner B.

Carl Raggio knew that spacecraft design had to meet a number of requirements such as environmental standards, preliminary standard trajectories, launch, flight performance, testing, encounter operations, and applying lessons learned to the next flight.

As seen in this collection, Carl Raggio was a man of vision and leadership. In December 1958, he became lead designer of the JII (Juno) Starfinder Program and in 1975, he became manager of JPL's Engineering Design Section 356. As of March 1990, Raggio continued as manager of Section 356, but by September 1990 shortly before his retirement, he transferred to Section 350, Mechanical Systems Engineering and Research as a staff member, no longer a section manager. After thirty-eight years of service at JPL, Carl Raggio retired on October 1,1990.