Frances Humphrey Lecture Series “NASA’s Perseverance Rover and Nevada” by Raymond Francis, Ph.D.

Description

In February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in Mars’ Jezero crater, an ancient former lake now a dry desert, to explore, seek signs of ancient life, and prepare rock samples for return to Earth.  One year earlier, in February 2020, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built and operates the rover, conducted its final training simulation for the mission’s science team.  ROASTT-2020, the Rover Operations Activities for Science Team Training, was a high-fidelity mission operations simulation using a terrestrial analogue site near Hawthorne, Nevada.  This desert and former lakebed terrain was selected for it similarity to the expected geology of Jezero crater.  The two-week mission operations simulation allowed the mission’s scientists to practice exploring with instruments similar to those on the real rover and prepare for the real mission a year later.  This talk will describe the ROASTT-2020 exercise and how NASA’s team used it to prepare to explore Jezero crater and will give first results from the rover’s exploration on Mars.

Dr. Raymond Francis is a science operations engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  He was the Science Team Training System Engineer for the Mars 2020 rover project, leading the design and implementation of the training program, and acting as field team lead.  Now that the Perseverance rover has landed, he works in mission operations for the rover, guiding activity and observation planning for the science team, and operating the SuperCam laser spectrometer instrument.  He also continues to work in operations for the Curiosity rover and its ChemCam instrument, including as system engineer for the AEGIS intelligent targeting system.  He also conducts research in onboard autonomy and operations for planetary exploration missions.  He holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Western Ontario, an MSc in Physics from the Royal Military College of Canada, and a BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ottawa.

This lecture will be presented via Zoom. It is free to members and children age 17 and under. Non-members must pay $8. Click on the Register Here button to the right to reserve your spot.