Sarah Milkovich | |
|---|---|
 Milkovich speaks at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2015 | |
| Alma mater | Brown University California Institute of Technology |
| Known for | HiRISE Mars 2020 |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Sarah Milkovich is lead of Science Operations for the Mars 2020 rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was investigation scientist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Milkovich grew up in Ithaca, New York. [1] Here she became interested in astronomy watching TV specials about spacecraft of Nova and PBS, and during vacations in northern Minnesota. [2] [3] She used to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower with her parents. [3] Milkovich attended Phillips Exeter Academy, which she graduated in 1996. [4] Whilst a high school student, she worked as an intern for the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft. [3] She earned a bachelor's degree in planetary science at California Institute of Technology in 2000. [5] [6] She moved to Brown University, where she earned a master's degree and PhD in planetary geology in 2005. [6] [7]
Milkovich joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory after completed her PhD. [8] There she has worked on the Mars Phoenix landing spacecraft, the Cassini–Huygens mission and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [8] Her first rover was Curiosity, for which she was responsible for high-resolution imaging using HiRISE. [9] [2] She was most proud of the Mars Science Laboratory parachute image of Curiosity's landing. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] HiRISE allowed Milkovich and scientists to take turns to choose where images were taken, and took suggestions from the public. [16] She featured on C-SPAN representing NASA to talk about developments in Curiosity. [17] [18]
Milkovich is the lead Science systems Engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars 2020 rover. [19] The rover is estimated to cost $2 billion. [20]
She regularly appears on online science podcasts and videos. [21] [22] [23] [24] She visits schools and gives public talks to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. [25] [26] [27] [28] [8] She has been a keynote speaker at Dragon Con in 2016 and 2018. [29] [30]
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Caltech researchers, the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by NASA and administered and managed by the California Institute of Technology.
2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. The data Odyssey obtains is intended to help answer the question of whether life once existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A Mars rover is a remote-controlled motor vehicle designed to travel on the surface of Mars. Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to weather winter months, and they can advance the knowledge of how to perform very remote robotic vehicle control. They serve a different purpose than orbital spacecraft like Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. A more recent development is the Mars helicopter.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions, with some failing before their observations could begin. Some missions have been met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which operated for years beyond their specification.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2005, at 11:43 UTC and reached Mars on March 10, 2006, at 21:24 UTC. In November 2006, after six months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase.
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed Curiosity, a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a human mission to Mars. The rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team.
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Mars Cube One was a Mars flyby mission launched on 5 May 2018 alongside NASA's InSight Mars lander. It consisted of two nanospacecraft, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, that provided real-time communications to Earth for InSight during its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on 26 November 2018 - when InSight was out of line of sight from the Earth. Both spacecraft were 6U CubeSats designed to test miniaturized communications and navigation technologies. These were the first CubeSats to operate beyond Earth orbit, and aside from telecommunications they also tested CubeSats' endurance in deep space. On 5 February 2019, NASA reported that both the CubeSats had gone silent by 5 January 2019, and are unlikely to be heard from again. In August 2019, the CubeSats were honored for their role in the successful landing of the InSight lander on Mars.
Susan G. Finley, a native Californian, has been an employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since January 1958, making her the longest-serving woman in NASA. Two days before Explorer 1 was launched, Finley began her career with the laboratory as a human computer, calculating rocket launch trajectories by hand. She now serves as a subsystem engineer for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). At JPL, she has participated in the exploration of the Moon, the Sun, all the planets, and other bodies in the Solar System.
Lady Diana Trujillo Pomerantz is a Colombian-American aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She currently leads the engineering team at JPL responsible for the robotic arm of the Perseverance rover. On February 18, 2021, Trujillo hosted the first ever Spanish-language NASA transmission of a planetary landing, for the Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
Laura Kerber is an American research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory studying planetary geology. Her research has covered explosive volcanism, wind erosion in deserts, and extraterrestrial caves. Her work focuses mainly on Mercury, Mars, and the Moon. Kerber graduated from Pomona College in 2006 and holds two master's degrees, in Geology and Engineering, and a PhD in Geology from Brown University.
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Bethany List Ehlmann is an American geologist and a professor of Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology. A leading researcher in planetary geology, Ehlmann is also the President of The Planetary Society, Director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and a Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Candice Joy Hansen-Koharcheck is a planetary scientist. She is responsible for the development and operation of the JunoCam, for which she received the NASA's Outstanding Public Leadership Medal in 2018.
David Y. Oh is an American spacecraft systems engineer and expert in electric propulsion. Dr. Oh currently works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the NASA Psyche mission chief engineer. Prior to this role he served as the Project Systems Engineering Manager for Psyche. He was also the cross-cutting phase lead and lead flight director for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission and was recognized in popular media for living on Mars time with his family during the month following the landing of the Curiosity rover.
Jennifer Harris Trosper is an American aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. During her 30-year career at JPL, Trosper has occupied crucial positions in engineering management pertaining to every spacecraft that has traversed the Martian surface. Because of her leadership and engineering expertise, Trosper has appeared on broadcast media outlets as an authority in development and execution of missions to Mars.