Nail-biting Members of NASA s Mars Perseverance Team on the Thrill of Seeing Rover Land
On 2/25/21 at 5:29 AM EST
Scientists involved in the development of NASA s Mars Perseverance rover have told
Newsweek about the intense emotions they experienced after watching the vehicle safely land on the surface of the Red Planet last Thursday.
The experts, who work across fields ranging from engineering to AI, all spoke about the anxiety and delight involved in sending the rover nearly 300 million miles to Earth s second-closest planetary neighbor.
Nagin Cox serves as a deputy leader for Perseverance s engineering operations team. She wanted to work in the field of robotic space exploration since she was 14 years old, and from her first day at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cox has written IWWTWTF on the corner of all of her notebooks as a reminder of how badly she wanted to join the team. It means: I was willing to wash the floors.