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From: Landerer, Felix W (US 321G) <felix.w.landerer(a)jpl.nasa.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, 24 June 2026 10:35 AM
Subject: Byron Tapley's passing
Dear GRACE and GRACE-FO Science Community,
We are deeply saddened to share with you the news of Prof. Byron Tapley’s passing. He passed away on Monday, June 22nd, surrounded by his family at his home in Austin, Texas.
Our community knows him as the PI of the GRACE mission, having led its proposal, formulation, implementation, and operation over a two-decade span from 1997 to 2017. Thereafter, he indefatigably promoted continuity with the GRACE-FO and GRACE-C missions and advocating for the allied sciences. He was a leader of an international community that ushered in a paradigm shift in measuring and understanding gravity and mass change in the global Earth system from space, analyzing its natural and anthropogenic variability across land, ocean, and ice domains, and - importantly - developing novel applications for societal benefits.
The community will no doubt find opportunities to remember and celebrate his six-decade-long professional career, and his life and accomplishments far beyond the GRACE missions. For the moment, we wish to note the passing of a giant in space geodesy. His leadership and commitment to the space geodesy community will be sorely missed.
Srinivas Bettadpur & Himanshu Save for the UT-CSR community
Mike Watkins, Felix Landerer, Mona Witkowski and Annette Eicker for the GRACE-missions teams
