Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: Diana Trujillo, flight director for NASA's Perseverance program

Diana Trujillo, born in 1983 in Colombia, leads the engineering team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's robotic arm of the Perseverance rover on Mars. 

She immigrated to the US when she was only 17 and worked as a housekeeper while taking English lessons at Miami Dad College.  While studying aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, she applied to the NASA Academy being the first Hispanic immigrant woman admitted to the program.  She moved the University of Maryland, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 2007. 

At NASA she has worked on the the Curiosity program before working as the flight director on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover robotic arm.

In February 2021, she hosted NASA's first Spanish-language planetary landing show.

Celebrating Black History Month: Jessica Watkins, new African-American astronaut

Jessica Watkins, born May 14, 1988 over here in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a new astronaut candidate for NASA.  She got her Bachelor's Degree in geology and environmental sciences from Stanford University and her PhD from University of California, Los Angeles.

She has been involved many projects relating to the study and exploration of Mars including collaborating on the Mars Curiosity rover.  She was selected as an astronaut candidate and started her two-year astronaut training in August 2017.

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover celebrates 2000 Martian days

NASA's Curiosity rover has just passed a new milestone yesterday.  It has been exploring the Red Planet for two thousand Martian days, or sols (about 2054 Earth days).

Launched November 26, 2011, the rover landed August 6, 2012 on Aeolis Palus in the Gale Crater.  In December 2012, Curiosity's two year mission was extended indefinitely.  So far, it has traveled over 11 miles since it began its exploration.