Desmond King-Hele, born in Seaford, East Sussex, in 1927, was educated at Epsom College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in Farnborough from 1948 until retirement in 1988, and was Deputy Chief Scientific Officer of the Space Department at the RAE from 1968. At the RAE he pioneered the mathematical theory of Earth satellite orbits to determine more accurately the shape of the Earth and the properties of its upper atmosphere.
King-Hele also worked on literary and historical subjects. He published a study of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1960, and also researched the life and work of Erasmus Darwin. King-Hele wrote the standard biography of Darwin, edited a 685-page collection of his letters and in 2014 published a book on Darwin’s role in biological evolution.
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1966. He was a member of the International Academy of Astronautics from 1961, and chairman of many committees, including the Satellite Optical Tracking Committee, Royal Society (1972–97), the History of Science Grants Committee of the Royal Society (1990–93), the British National Committee for History of Science, Medicine and Technology (1985–89), and the Advisory Panel for Culture of Science, Technology and Medicine at the British Library (1992–2002) in addition to editing ‘Notes and Records’, the journal of the Royal Society.
King-Hele died on 25 December 2019.