Dr. Slava G. Turyshev

Slava G. Turyshev, DSc, Ph.D. is Astrophysicist, Senior Research Scientist, Technologist, and Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California.

He is known for his investigations of the Pioneer anomaly, affecting Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft, and for his attempt to recover early data of the Pioneer spacecraft to shed light on such a phenomenon.

Slava has been at Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1993, where he is currently a Research Scientist working in the Structure of the Universe Research Group since 1997. Since 2016, he has been Project Scientist for the Advanced Lunar Laser Ranging Facility at Table Mountain Observatory. Read Advanced Laser Ranging for high-precision science investigations.

Previously, he was NASA Project Scientist for the CNES/ESA Microscope mission between 2016 and 2020 and Principal Investigator of the NIAC mission concept studies for imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens (SGL) between 2017 and 2022. When he joined JPL in 1993, Slava was Resident Research Associate until 1997.

He has published over 230 papers and the two books From Quantum to Cosmos: Fundamental Physics Research in Space and Lasers, Clocks and Drag-Free Control: Exploration of Relativistic Gravity in Space.

Slava joined the University of California as Adjunct Professor in 2012 and was the Principal Investigator on the investigation of the Pioneer Anomaly between 2003 and 2012. In July 2012, he published a paper Support for the thermal origin of the Pioneer anomaly in Physical Review Letters that explained the Pioneer anomaly, or Pioneer effect which was the observed deviation from predicted accelerations of the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft after they passed about 20 astronomical units on their trajectories out of the Solar System. The apparent anomaly has been explained by anisotropic radiation pressure caused by the spacecraft’s heat loss.

His work explored the effect of the thermal recoil force on Pioneer 10 and concluded that once the thermal recoil force is properly accounted for, no anomalous acceleration remains. Although the paper by Turyshev et al. has the most detailed analysis to date, the explanation based on thermal recoil force has the support of other independent research groups, using various computational techniques.

Examples include thermal recoil pressure is not the cause of the Rosetta flyby anomaly but likely resolves the anomalous acceleration observed for Pioneer 10 and It is shown that the whole anomalous acceleration can be explained by thermal effects. Read Support for Temporally Varying Behavior of the Pioneer Anomaly from the Extended Pioneer 10 and 11 Doppler Data Sets and High precision thermal modeling of complex systems with Application to the flyby and Pioneer anomaly.

His primary research areas include:

• Theoretical and experimental gravitational and fundamental physics, relativistic celestial mechanics, relativistic astrophysics, precision optical astrometry, and laser metrology.

• Relativistic cosmology and alternative theories of gravity; gravitational-wave astronomy, including wave generation, propagation, and detection.
• Lunar and interplanetary laser ranging; high-power beam combination, laser sensing, and related technology efforts.
• Optical sensors, detection of faint, fast-moving near-Earth objects (NEOs), synthetic tracking technology.
• High-power coherent beam combination, ranging, and power transmission.
• Direct, high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets with a solar gravitational lens (SGL).

He was the principal investigator of the LATOR mission aimed at testing parameterized post-Newtonian formalism with high accuracy.

Slava chaired several workshops at the International Space Science Institute on the Pioneer anomaly and the flyby anomaly.

In 2020, he presented his idea of Direct Multi-pixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravitational Lens Mission. The lens could reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal was selected for the Phase III of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. He proposes to use realistic-sized solar sails to achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion, reaching 547 AU in 17 years. Read Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravitational Lens Mission.

In 2023, a team of scientists led by Slava proposed the Sundiver concept, where a solar sailcraft serves as a modular platform for various instruments and missions, including rendezvous with other Sundivers for resupply, in a variety of different self-sustaining orbits reaching velocities of ~5-10 AU/yr. Read Solar sails could guide interplanetary travel, says new study.

Slava earned his Doctor of Science (DSc) Habilitation in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Gravitational Physics in 2008 from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia with the doctoral thesis High-precision methods of relativistic navigation, celestial mechanics, and astrometry and their application for experimental verification of modern theories of gravity.

In 2003, Slava earned his MBA in Technology Management from The Anderson Graduate School of Management, at UCLA. He earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Theoretical Gravity Physics from Moscow State University in 1990 with the thesis The motion of extended bodies in metric theories of gravity, and his MSc in Quantum Field Theory and High energy Physics with the highest honors in 1987 from Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Following his graduation in 1987, he worked as a senior research fellow at Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1993, he became a member of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as Resident Research Associate. The following year, he founded Main Point, Inc and has been their CEO since.

Slava has been working between the US and Moscow on various Research and Development projects, specifically for the State Astronomical Institute, Laboratory of Laser Interferometric Measurements, and Department of Relativistic Astrophysics, all at the Moscow State University.

Among others, he worked on Creation of a new generation of high-precision systems for precision navigation and spacecraft control (2009–2010), Development of proposals for using the capabilities of a promising manned space infrastructure for studying the Sun, conducting astrometric, astronomical, and gravitational research. Assessment of the possibilities of using laser technologists (2010), New precision gravitational experiments in terrestrial and orbital laboratories (2015–2016), Space technologies for studying the Earth’s rotation, building coordinate systems and experimental geodynamics (2016–2020), Study of the Earth’s gravitational field by a cluster of spacecraft using laser interferometric communication: theoretical and experimental aspects (2018–2019), and Development of principles for the creation and implementation of a new generation space constellation for measuring the Earth’s gravitational field with high spatial and temporal resolution (2019–2022).

At the Alternative Gravities and Dark Matter Workshop at Royal Observatory in 2006, Slava presented Testing Gravity in the Solar System: Empirical Foundations of General Relativity.

In 2022, Slava was an advisor to Take4Games, a games and technology startup that develops businesses in blockchain, in the development of the game Universus, a series of play-to-earn mobile games that uses a robust economic system, through NFTs and tokens, and has space exploration as a backdrop. Read NASA Astrophysicist talks about his work on Brazilian Game Universus.

Slava is an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). Throughout his career, Slava earned numerous awards and honorary fellowships. He was awarded honorary fellowships by the USSR Ministry of Higher Education and Moscow State University (1983–1990), became Lenin’s Fellow, the highest respectable scholarship in the USSR (1985–1990), received the USSR SupremeSoviet Medal “For Excellence” for Exceptional Scientific and Public Service Achievement (1986), and earned a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at NASA JPL (1993–1996).

He received a NASA Group Achievement Award for the Space Interferometry Mission Micro-arcsecond Metrology (MAM) Testbed Team (2003); received an award by the International Space Science Institute for the International Team Proposal (2005); received the NASA Group Achievement Award, GRAIL Science Data System Team (2012); was the winner of the Inaugural Canopus Award (2015); received the JPL Voyager Award (2020); and became NIAC Phase I Fellow (2017); Phase II Fellow (2018); and Phase III Fellow (2020).

Watch The REAL Possibility of Mapping Alien Planets! and Turning the Sun Into a Giant Telescope with Dr. Slava Turyshev.

Read 50 years ago, NASA sent a message to aliens — and sparked a Solar System mystery, Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Would Let Us See Exoplanets With Incredible Resolution, and NASA Is Planning to Find Aliens Using Spacetime Warped Around the Sun.

Read The Emerging Sail/Cubesat Paradigm for Deep Space, Building Smallsat Capabilities for the Outer System, and Self-Assembly: Reshaping Mission Design. Read To Find Earth-Threatening Comets and Asteroids, Think Small and Using the Sun as a Cosmic Telescope.

Read his articles Evolving morphology of resolved stellar Einstein rings, Spectrally resolved imaging with the solar gravitational lens, Resolved imaging of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens, Multipole decomposition of gravitational lensing, Wave-optical study of the Einstein cross formed by a quadrupole gravitational lens, Gravitational lensing by an extended mass distribution, and Image formation for extended sources with the solar gravitational lens.

Read Imaging a habitable world and Solar Sail Propulsion by 2050: An Enabling Capability for Heliophysics Missions.

Visit his LinkedIn profile, his work page, and his National Academic profile. Follow him on Google Scholar, ResearchGate, ORCiD, Facebook, IEEE Xplore, and Academia, and read his iNspire HEP profile.