The prestigious George W . Goddard Award , 1996 . At the time , her surname Scholl was taken after her husband . Private Archives . Photo : Tamino Petelinšek , STA .
CASSINI MISSION
She is best known for developing an autonomous technique for optical navigation , which remains one of the fundamental methods for determining location and orientation on and around Earth . With the help of star charts , an intelligent CCD camera , and a computer calculating directions based on an algorithm she developed , spacecraft became independent of Earth-based calculations . The technology was first deployed on the Cassini mission to Saturn .
For this invention , the International Society of Optics and Photonics bestowed on her the prestigious George W . Goddard Award in 1996 . She was the first woman to receive this accolade .
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