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.

Happy birthday, Taylor Wang, first Chinese astronaut!

Taylor Wang, born June 16, 1940 in the Republic of China, is the first Chinese astronaut.  He went into space aboard Challenger (STS-51-B) as payload specialist in April-May 1985.  He was employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the time.  It was the second mission of the European Space Agency's Spacelab.  He spent about 7 days in space.

Mariner 7, mission to Mars, launched 1969

Mariner 7, the second of twin space probes to Mars, was launched March 27, 1969, about a month after Mariner 6 was launched. 

Less than a week before its closest approach, Jet Propulsion Laboaratory lost contact with Mariner 7 on July 29, but they managed to find a signal using a backup low-gain antenna and then regained use of a high-gain antenna.  Mariner 7 made its closest approach to the Red Planet August 5.  After its pass, it was deactivated in December 1970 and now is in a heliocentric orbit.

Phoenix Mars Lander launched 2007

Phoenix Mars Lander, launched August 4, 2007, was the first successful landing of a spacecraft on Mars' north polar region.  It took 10 months to travel to Mars and is the first mission to the Red Planet to be led by a public university, University of Arizona in Tucson.  The Phoenix is a partnership of universities in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, the UK, NASA, the Candian Space Agency and Finnish Meteorological Institute.

It landed May 25, 2008 and completed its mission in  August but continued until November, when  the Martian winter set in.  NASA hoped it  would survive but as of May 2010 contact could not be re-established so Jet Propulsion Laboratory declared it dead.  Since Phoenix completed all of its goals, it has been considered a success.

One surprise was the observation of snow from cirrus clouds.  It had  to be water-ice because the Martian atmosphere and temperatures are not favorable for carbon dioxide ice to form.

Fashionistas in space!

When many of us hear the word ‘fabrics’, we immediately think of avant-garde, haute couture dresses, the latest fashions from Paris, or ‘who-is-wearing-who’ on the Red Carpet.  In space exploration, however, fabrics have more applications than for just snazzy clothes, like antennas, spacesuits and shields for spacecraft.

Raul Polit Casillas, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is the son of a fashion designer from Spain, so he grew up familiar with fabrics.  Now he is applying his knowledge and skills to develop woven metal fabrics for applications in space.

The fabrics that Polit Casillas and his colleagues are not hand-sewn but are 3-D printed, using a technique called additive manufacturing, which is cheaper and can be used to create unique materials.   This could also help reduce the costs of building complex, expensive spacecraft.  Fabrics can be manufactured for reflectivity, passive heave management, foldability and tensile strength.  For example, one side of a fabric reflects light while the other absorbs it.  It can be folded and cut into necessary shapes. 

One of the most important applications could be for spacesuits for astronauts.  A fabric that has heat-generating properties can be printed to keep astronauts and spacecraft warm.  It could also be used to help explorers walk on uneven terrain and not melt the ice underneath them.

I previously reported in a post that structures on Mars could be 3-D printed, and now fabrics and materials can be created with similar technology. 

But at first, clothes will be have to be manufactured for substance, rather than style. Sorry, fashionistas!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6816