Definition
A SpaceX Principal Rocket Landing Engineer and guidance expert who adapted the G-FOLD Algorithm to enable the first-ever vertical landings of orbital-class rockets.
Why It Matters
Landing a rocket is a “beer can” through a needle. Blackmore’s work in convex optimization turned this “impossible” GNC challenge into a solvable math problem, enabling the first-ever vertical landings and the revolution of reusability.
Core Concepts
- Background: British engineer; PhD from MIT. Worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on Mars rover guidance.
- Role: Joined SpaceX in 2011 to lead the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) efforts for booster recovery.
- The “Impossible” Task: Tasked with steering a 150-foot “beer can” through the upper atmosphere and landing it on a small target while traveling at supersonic speeds.
- G-FOLD: Co-invented the core algorithm that allows Falcon 9 to calculate its optimal landing path in real-time.