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, Space Shuttle astronaut Robert Curbeam!

Robert Curbeam, born March 5, 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland(!), has been in space three times.  After graduation from the US Naval Academy with a Master's Degree in Astronautical Engineering in 1991, he was selected by NASA in Dec 1994.  

His first mission into space was aboard Discovery (STS-85) as mission specialist in August 1997. One of the experiments was the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging Systems from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas (I've been there!) and the University of Maryland (I've been by there!).

His second flight was aboard Atlantis (STS-98) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in February 2001.  During the mission, he performed three EVAs with fellow astronaut Thomas Jones for almost 20 hours total.

His third and final mission was aboard Discovery (STS-116) to the International Space Station in December 2006.  He conducted four spacewalks for about 25 1/2 hours total, setting the record for the most EVAs during a mission.  

Happy birthday, astronaut Ricky Arnold!

Richard "Ricky" Arnold, born November 26, 1963 just down the road from here in Cheverly, Maryland, has been in space twice.  He attended Frostburg State University in Maryland, getting a degree in accounting and then completed teacher certification there.  He got a Master's Degree from the University of Maryland in 1992.

His first flight was aboard Discovery (STS-119) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in March 2009.  He conducted two EVAs during the mission with fellow astronauts Steven Swanson and Joe Acaba.

His second mission was aboard Soyuz MS-08, launched in March 2018 to the International Space Station as part of the crew of Expedition 55 with fellow astronauts Oleg Artemyev and Andrew Feustel.  They spent over 196 days in space, returning to Earth in October 2018.

Celebrating Black History Month: Harry A. Cole, first African-American state senator for Maryland

Harry Cole, born January 21, 1921 in Washington, DC, was the first African-American ever elected to the Maryland Senate and the first African-American to serve on the Maryland Court of Appeals.  He was valedictorian of his graduating class from Morgan State College with a Bachelor of Arts.  After serving in the U.S. Army, he studied law at the University of Maryland and was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1949.

He was elected to the Maryland State Senate in 1955 and served until 1966. 

He passed away in Baltimore February 14, 1999.