The final frontier (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

The final frontier

Anthony Osborne meets a man who, after being diagnosed as dyslexic at school in Swindon, became an engineer on some of Europe's top space projects.

WHEN Dr Christopher Lee was seven he was diagnosed dyslexic and was sent to a school for children with learning problems.

Now the engineer is involved in space missions exploring the final frontier.

Dr Lee, 37, of Old Town, Swindon, has been developing and building components for some of Europe's most important space projects.

He is working for Von Hoerner & Sulger based in the town of Schwetzingen near Heidelburg.

He is currently trying to design and build a vehicle to land on the surface of the planet Mercury.

This is called BepiColombo and is scheduled to set off in December 2012 for Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

After a journey lasting up to four years and two months, the probe, will orbit Mercury, bringing new images and data.

It will be the first European probe using electric propulsion.

Dr Lee lived in Swindon as a schoolboy and attended Lethbridge Infants' and Junior schools.

When his dyslexia was diagnosed he was sent to a school in Swindon for children with learning problems which helped him to overcome many hurdles, and allowed him to go on to university and complete his doctorate.

Until October last year, Dr Lee had been working at Imperial College in London on the Rosetta mission a European Space Agency Mission to send a craft to rendezvous and land on the comet 67P+/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

"The comet has such a complicated name, we just know it as Natasha," said Dr Lee.

"The launch had been delayed by a year because of problems with the Ariane 5 rocket so they had to send Rosetta to a different comet.

"I had been working on the project then for about six or seven years so it was quite emotional see it go finally."

The Rosetta spacecraft was launched on March 2 this year on top of an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and Dr Lee was there to see it go.

He said at the time: "Three of my special babies are going off into space attached to a very expensive firework."

When it reaches the comet, a small lander will detach and land on the comet's surface then carry out experiments to see what the comets are made from, so scientists can discover how a frozen comet is transformed by the warmth of the sun.

Now it has been launched, scientists can do little more than wait for the results of the craft's experiments to be sent back to Earth.

Before Rosetta, Dr Lee carried out work on the Integral project a large two-tonne telescope designed to track and record violent incidents in space.