As an engineer at Lockheed Martin, he was part of the space race against the Soviet Union in the 1950s and the '60s. Later, he helped with the development of the precursor to the Internet. After he retired from Lockheed in 1997, he set up ST Infonox, a company that now works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protect the country from terrorists.

Last month, the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C., honored the Saratogan and four others with the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the highest award that an engineer can win in the United States. A cash award of $500,000 is also included in the award and will be divided between the five recipients.

Araki, a graduate of Stanford University, was one of the first engineers selected for the Corona space program in the '50s. He served as the systems engineer for the Agena spacecraft, part of the Corona launch vehicle. The Agena was one of the first spacecrafts in the world to make photo reconnaissance possible.

"The Russians had launched the Sputnik and caught the United States by surprise. A tremendous emphasis was put on science and engineering after that," said Araki.

Araki, who worked at the Lockheed Martin plant in Sunnyvale, said that there was a tremendous pressure on the Corona team to succeed.

"The U2 aircraft had been shot down. We had lost the ability to spy on the Soviet Union," he said.

"Every time we had a failure, it was like a test and we had to take corrective action. We had a charter to fly in nine months; we did it in 16," Araki said.

Araki's work on that pioneering space program was not recognized all these years because the documents related to the Corona Space Program were top secret. The documents were declassified in 1995.

Araki said that declassifying the documents helped compare current imaging capabilities with that of the 1950s.

"I was surprised, shocked and honored that the Corona team had been awarded the Charles Stark Draper prize," said Araki.

In his career as a space engineer, Araki has also worked on communication and weather satellites.

"Sometimes we forget how much space research has become part of our lives. When we see the weather forecast on TV or use a GPS system to find an address, we are using space technology," he said.

Later, at Lockheed Martin, he was part of several programs connected with the development of a government Intranet system.

After 9-11, Araki's company teamed up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to tackle the threat of terrorism.

"This is very different from the Cold War, which was a very monolithic threat. The terrorist threat is asymmetric. We do not know how they are going to attack us," Araki said.

His company has tried to find a solution by using software used by financial companies. "They deal with asymmetric threats like fraud attempts. We use that model to look for unpredictable threats in the making," he said.

Araki's life has not been any less hectic since he retired from Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space as its president. He now visits the East Coast on business almost every other week.

In 2004, Araki was awarded the von Braun Award for Excellence in Space Program Management by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"I do not have a lot of free time but when I do, I like gardening," said Araki.

He has not won any awards for that yet.