My Home Page: Ijar
M. Fonseca
Welcome to my home page. I'm very glad that you
made it this far . . . and I hope that you'll stick around long enough to get
to know just a little bit more about me and my life.
World Space
Congress - Washington D.C. - 1992
My Background
I was born in a small town
called Carmo do Cajuru, M.G., Brazil. I was still a teen when I moved to Belo
Horizonte city where I got my bachelor degree in History. From Belo Horizonte I
moved to Governador Valadares city, M.G. where I worked for ten years as
History teacher in a middle school. During this time I got my Mechanical
Engineering degree at the Minas Institute of Technology. In 1981 I married to
Jusmena and in 1982 we moved to Sao Jose dos Campos, S.P., where I began a
Master graduation course on Aerodynamics and Flight Dynamics (at ITA, the
Technological Institute of Aeronautics). In 1984 before getting the M.Sc.
degree I start working at the Brazilian Institute for Space Research, INPE. Then I was involved in
the Brazilian Complete Space Mission, MECB, by participating of the
SCD-1 satellite project.
In parallel I have continued my M.Sc. research and in 1986 I got the M.Sc.
degree in Science in the area of Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics. In 1991 I
started my Doctoral Program at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics at
the Aeronautics Technological Center in S. J. Campos. Meanwhile I was
engaged in the SCD-2 and SSR1 satellite
projects. In 1992 I received a scholarship from CNPq and the Doctoral Program
entered in shared phase with the participation of Howard University, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
I went to Howard University where I spent two years developing a joint research
together with Prof. Peter M. Bainum on the integrated structural and Control
Optimization of a Large Orbiting Space Structure. In 1994 I got back to Brazil.
I was immediately engaged in the SACI-1 small satellite project as the
responsible for the spacecraft attitude control subsystem (see SaciACS and SaciOver). In parallel I have continued
to develop the doctoral program. In March 1998 I defended my thesis
at ITA with the presence
of my advisor Prof. Peter M. Bainum, from USA. I got my Ph.D. degree in
Flight Dynamics. In November 2001 I came back to Howard University to develop a
Post-Doctoral program. I returned to Brazil in January 2003. Presently I am
working in the Brazilian satellite PMM (Multimission Platform) AOCS
and serving as an assessor in the NanosatC, a student nonosatellite in
development at the Federal University of Santa Maria, State of Paraná. Also I
teach at INPE/DMC graduation Space Mechanics and Control course and at São Marcos University
(Education, Administration and Communication Interdisciplinar course). In
parallel to my space activities at INPE, from 1998 up to now I have got
involved in university teaching in the area of Software Engineering and
Information Technology, Robotics and Distance Learning. If you want to go further on my
professional skills here is my Curriculum (English) and
Curriculo (Portuguese). After all
I like very much the nature, fishing, music and the sky... all about the sky
and the universe. Just to see the stars in a dark and silent night or to go
through math, mechanics and computer to formulate and solve problems related to
space. In the space area work and hobby is all the same for me.
Links to My Favorite Sites
NASA
http://station.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/
Computer Science Corporation
CompUSA
TechWeb
Education Index
http://www2.dem.inpe.br/ijar/links.html
E-mail
: 
E-mail : 