Our group prides itself on our support of spacecraft operations and science

Space Missions

At the root, our work flows from our passion for solar system exploration.

Below, discover the missions to which we have contributed.

Futuristic scene with several representations of the Huygens spacecraft landing on Titan, a moon of Saturn, with Saturn in the background and mysterious clouds and cosmic lights.
Portrait of a man with glasses and dark hair, wearing a dark shirt, looking to the side against a dark background.

The Huygens Mission

During my PhD, my advisor Peter Smith invited me to be a part of the science team for his advisor’s instrument: the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on the Huygens Mission to Saturn’s Moon Titan. I was fortunate to be at ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany for the landing in 2005 and was in the room when the first images from the surface of Titan arrived back on Earth. This formative experience changed my life! My work on the Side Looking Imager (SLI) became part of the Nature paper on DISR, my very first publication as a Scientist.

A robotic lunar lander on Mars' surface with a sunset and multiple moons or planets visible in the sky.
Portrait of a man with glasses, dark hair, wearing a dark blue shirt, against a dark background.

The Phoenix Mission

Working on the Phoenix Mission taught me just how powerful the combination of engineering and science can be. As a PhD student in Peter Smith’s lab, I served as a Science Planner/Integrator whose responsibility is reconciling the science desires of the science team and the engineering capabilities of the spacecraft into a high-level plan. I loved it!

Beyond my operational role, I was a Science Team Collaborator and led peer-reviewed papers on wind direction, clouds, fog and dust accumulation on the lander’s surfaces. I won two NASA Group Achievement awards for my contributions.

Mars rover on the red, rocky Martian surface with a hazy sky and distant hills in the background.
Portrait of a man with dark hair, glasses, and wearing a dark shirt, looking to the side against a dark background.
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The Curiosity Mission

(Mars Science Lab)

While still a postdoc, I became a Participating Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory Mission (Curiosity) investigating clouds, dust and methane at Gale Crater on Mars. Our group has published 23 papers using MSL mission data and supported over 600 mission operations shifts over the past 11 years. We have won 14 NASA Group Achievement Awards for our contributions to this mission.

Illustration of a Mars rover drilling into the planet's surface, with a drill arm extended downward into the ground, and solar panels on either side of the rover, on a Mars landscape with a reddish sky.
A young woman with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair, smiling at the camera in an indoor setting. She is wearing a blue polo shirt with a NASA logo and a black cardigan.
Portrait of a man with glasses, dark hair, wearing a dark shirt, looking to his right against a dark background.

The InSight Mission

We joined forces with Dr. Mark Lemmon to help support the InSight mission, serving on his Participating Scientist grant as collaborators. Charissa Campbell led work analyzing wind speed and direction from the lander’s cameras.

A spacecraft in space near Jupiter with its distinctive bands and Great Red Spot visible.
A young woman with long blonde hair smiling at the camera, set against a green background.
Portrait of a young man with dark hair and glasses, wearing a dark blue shirt, against a dark background.

The Juno Mission

While serving as a postdoctoral fellow in my group, Dr. Christina Smith was selected as a Participating Scientist on the Juno Mission in 2018. She served as the Science PI on the grant while I served as funding PI.