Daniel Lobb obituary

My brother Dan Lobb, who has died aged 80, was a designer of optical instruments for spacecraft, working at the Scientific Instrument Research Association (Sira) in Chislehurst, Kent, from the 1960s onwards.

Early on in his career, he became a designer of laser projector-based flight simulators, and spent a year in the US working at the Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington. Then, in the 80s Sira began developing optical instruments for space satellites, mainly for the European Space Agency (ESA). As an inventor of uniquely clever designs, a driver of computer analyses to optimise the shapes of the lenses and mirrors, and a very good physicist and mathematician, Dan was central to the work.