Q&A with project manager of NASA’s next Mars rover
MAY 11, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025298
Space.com : Next August, if all goes to plan, NASA’s car-sized rover Curiosity will touch down on the Martian surface and begin its mission: to determine whether Mars is or was ever hospitable to life. The person responsible for the mission’s success is project manager Peter Theisinger of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In a Q&A with Space.com’s Mike Wall, Theisinger describes the technical challenges he and his colleagues had to contend with, notably ensuring that the rover lands safely and upright. Comparing Curiosity with its two famous predecessors, Theisinger answered,
Spirit and Opportunity were geology missions. They were looking for signs of water, and they found it. This is taking the next step forward: to look at more detailed chemistry and mineralogy, and to see if there were true habitability possibilities, and to search for organics as well.
© 2011 American Institute of Physics