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Donald N. Jortner, 90, passed away on August 29, 2024. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, and received his mechanical engineering degree from NY University and his PhD in ME from Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon). After fulfilling his AF ROTC requirements as a 2nd Lt. at Edwards AFB, he joined TRW in support of nuclear rocket propulsion analysis and design. After becoming a Section Head, he was made the Assistant Lab Manager of the Vulnerability & Hardness Lab. In 1968 He founded the TRW’s Hardness & Survivability (H&S) Lab to protect America’s aerospace and ground systems against nuclear threats from all natural and man-made hostile sources. He was responsible for over 350 people during the Lab’s peak. The Lab supported the design, analyses, testing, and verification of nuclear survivability of no less than 70 satellite systems (TRW and other companies), 12 large communications payloads (including MILSTAR and AEHF), and 17 aircraft types for EMP hardness. Don’s Lab also supported NASA programs as well as USAF’s Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBM programs. It was the only comprehensive H&S laboratory capability in industry at the time.
Dr. Jortner subsequently became Operations Manager for Survivability and Technology in 1983 for the Systems Development/Design Division of the Defense Systems Group. He retained that position until his retirement from TRW in 1989 after 27 plus years with the company.
Don’s last honor in 2024 was recently being nominated for the US Space Force Space Systems Command’s Schriever Wall of Honor.
Dr. Jortner’s legacy is captured in the first known unclassified article “Nuclear Hardness for System Survivability” which he coauthored in 1981, and the pictorial history “Hardness and Survivability” by M. Kong, both available for viewing in the TRA and NGAS archives. -
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