Sir Bernard Lovell, 98, a pioneer in radar and radio telescopes from the days when the technology helped save Britain in World War II until the beginning of the space age, died Monday at his home in Swettenham Village, England.
Sir Bernard, who became widely known through his books, lectures, and BBC television appearances, was especially renowned for creating the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, the only antenna that could track rockets in space in the early years of the space race.
Sir Bernard was also the founder and until 1980 the director of what is now the Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics, near Manchester. The center's 250-foot-wide white dish, mounted on latticework steel towers high in the English countryside, is today the third-largest steerable radio telescope in the world.
