Redmond rocket scientist Jon Schierberl’s work has landed on Mars six times before.
Yet he’s still excited enough that he flew to Florida with his extended family very early Thanksgiving morning to witness the planned Saturday launch of a new robotic rover headed for Mars.
Small rocket engines designed, built and tested by his team at Aerojet in Redmond will steer the delivery spacecraft on its journey and guide the rover to its touchdown on the planet’s surface.
“I’ve built rockets that have gone to every planet in the solar system, and that includes Pluto,” said Schierberl, the company’s program manager for small rocket engines.
With the help of an array of 36 of Schierberl’s rocket engines, the new robotic rover — NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, dubbed Curiosity — should reach Mars in about 8 ½ months.