In Memory of Dr. Martin Hilchenbach

With heavy hearts and in deep sorrow we bid farewell to Dr. Martin Hilchenbach, a long-standing scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, who passed away on August 13 of this year after a short, serious illness.

During his nearly 30 years at the MPS, Martin Hilchenbach contributed with his research and technical innovations to several space missions that were of great significance not only to the Institute, but also to the scientific community as a whole. He played a decisive role in space-based research studying the solar wind, the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Mars, Mercury, and asteroids.

Martin Hilchenbach's career began in 1986 with a doctorate in laser physics at the University of Innsbruck. His path then led him to the City University London, where he began working on the analysis of data from space missions. After six years at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, he moved to the MPS (at that time still called “Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy”) in 1996. Here he continued his work on the spectrometer CELIAS (Charge, Element, and Isotope Analysis System) for the space mission SOHO, which he had already begun in Garching.

Central topic of his work at MPS – and especially close to his heart – was the instrument COSIMA (Cometary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer) for the space mission Rosetta. In 2005, Martin Hilchenbach took over as Principal Investigator of the COSIMA team and was thus responsible for the following approach, observation, and data analysis phases. His calm and persistent leadership style, which especially valued communication and personal exchange, enabled the team to master even technically challenging phases and laid the foundation for the instrument's great success.

In parallel with this task, Martin Hilchenbach was Co-Investigator of the two instruments BELA (BepiColombo Laser Altimeter) and MIXS (Mercury Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer) for ESA's BepiColombo mission to Mercury and made significant contributions to the instrument MOMA (Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer) for ESA's ExoMars mission. Even after his retirement just a few months ago, he was still regularly at the Institute, where he played a leading role in developing a concept for what could be ESA’s first mission to collect a rock sample from an asteroid and bring it to Earth.

Martin Hilchenbach's work and scientific approach were characterized by his enthusiasm for engineering questions as well as his great curiosity and thirst for knowledge. He not only developed instruments based on very different measuring principles, but was also enthusiastic about and involved in a wide range of scientific research questions. This enormous versatility enabled him to look at problems and questions from new and unusual angles – and to enrich all areas, in which he was involved, with innovative solutions.

In addition to his technical and scientific contributions to instrument development and solar system research, he will be remembered above all for his quiet demeanor, his bashful, yet mischievous smile, his subtle humor, and his unobtrusive dedication to his team members and the Institute as a whole.

With Martin Hilchenbach's passing, the MPS loses an outstanding scientist, an innovative instrument developer as well as a good friend and colleague who, with his experience, his wealth of ideas, and his quiet, humorous manner, was part of the “Institute's DNA” for decades. In his many space instruments and his mission proposals, his ideas will live on.

He will be greatly missed.