[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 10

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 10
Feb.10,2018

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Table of Contents

1. Obituary: Prof. Willibald Riedler

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Obituary: Prof. Willibald Riedler

From: Bruno Bresser (bruno.besser at oeaw.ac.at)

It is with deep regret and sorrow that we report the passing of Prof. Dr.Dr. Willibald Riedler, former Director of the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, and Professor Emeritus, University of Technology Graz. Prof. Riedler died peacefully on January 24, 2018, at the age of 85.

Willibald Riedler was born in 1932 in Vienna and studied Communications at the University of Technology Vienna. In 1961 he received a doctor's degree with a thesis on "The Split-Up of the Electrokinetic Power Theorem". From 1962 to 1969 he worked as scientist at the Geophysical Observatory in Kiruna, Sweden, on topics of ionospheric and magnetospheric physics, implementing rocket and satellite experiments. In 1966 he received an additional doctor's degree at the University of Vienna with a thesis on "Measurements of Energy Spectra and Angle Distributions of Electrons in the Northern Aurora".

End of 1968 he was appointed Full Professor at the newly founded Institute of Communications at the University of Technology Graz and served in this position until his retirement in 2000. He established the research on satellite communications and space research and initiated the construction of the Observatory Lustbühel. From 1975 to 1977, he served as Rector of the University of Technology Graz.

Additionally to his duties at the university, he was Director of the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz from 1984 to 2000, which he co-founded in 1970. From 1978 to 2002, he was also acting as head of the Institute of Applied System Engineering of the provincial governmental research organisation "Joanneum Research".

Prof. Riedler and his groups participated in several planetary and interplanetary space missions, both with designing and building scientific instrumentation and analysing/interpreting the obtained data. He established already in 1970 very successful and long-lasting scientific collaborations with researchers from different institutes in the Soviet Union, among them the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Magnetospheric Physics Group of the University of Leningrad. In view of his excellent contacts to Soviet scientists, in 1990 he was Scientific Lead of the Project "AustroMir", sending an Austrian cosmonaut and scientific equipment to the Soviet/Russian space Station MIR.

Prof. Riedler was a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1993 and held several highest honours of the Province of Styria and the Austrian State.

The funeral ceremony took place on February 2, 2018. Our deepest sympathy goes to his wife Lilli, their children Karin, Birgit, Peter and families.


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