Tony McDonnell started his career at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, providing the opportunity for space research, where innovative satellite-borne detectors were developed to measure the threat to survival in space environments.
Following a NASA fellowship, he joined the University of Kent in 1967 and, over 30 years, successfully developed the Unit for Space Sciences and Astronomy.
His research included analysis of Moon rocks from NASA Apollo Programme and USSR Luna missions; hypervelocity impacts and specialised facilities; experiments during Giotto’s flyby of Halleys Comet; and interplanetary explorations by the Ulysses and Galileo probes.
Together with Peter Tsou and Don Brownlee, he was the first to demonstrate the intact capture of space particulates in aerogel, the baseline technique used in the Stardust Mission.
In 2000, he and his team moved from the University of Kent to form the UK’s largest space team at the Open University and triggered the building of the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute.