Ivan Istvan Mueller (9 January 1930, Budapest – 12 April 2023, Bloomfield, Connecticut)[1] was a Hungarian-American geodesist and professor at Ohio State University, a leading training center for geodesy in the USA.
[6][7] The project's innovations were combined with the Worldwide Geometric Satellite Triangulation Program, with Hellmut Schmid as technical director, to produce the most accurate coordinate determination to date across all seas and achieved a standard deviation of approximately ±3 m, which was about 20 times more accurate than the terrestrial methods, which at the time required extremely lengthy measurements over island chains.
[8] Another among Mueller's many ideas and projects involved Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) to investigate the geodynamics of California.
Mueller proposed that for geodynamics and geodesy, instead of recording laser-distance measurements solely from numerous ground stations using signal-relaying satellites, a considerable improvement would be to integrate the ground stations with the development of an active laser-carrying satellite system with time-of-flight measurement on board.
[9] The idea had some problems with technical feasibility, but was adopted in a similar form around 1990 for the French DORIS Doppler measurement system.