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Harold A. Rosen is an electrical engineer, known as "the father of the geostationary satellite". He formed and led the team that designed and built the first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom, for Hughes Aircraft Company.
Rosen graduated from Tulane University in 1947 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1948 and 1951, respectively.
Rosen received the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 1982, and the Charles Stark Draper Prize in 1995. He was also one of the first recipients of the National Medal of Technology, in 1985. In 2003, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
During the 1990s, Rosen Motors, founded by Rosen and his brother Benjamin M. Rosen, developed a gas turbine powered series hybrid automotive powertrain using a 55,000 rpm flywheel energy storage subsystem to provide bursts of acceleration which the small gas turbine engine could not provide. The flywheel also stored energy through regenerative braking. The flywheel was composed of a titanium hub with a carbon fiber cylinder and was gimbal mounted to minimize adverse gyroscopic effects on vehicle handling. The prototype vehicle was successfully road tested in 1997 but was never mass-produced.
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