Frontiers Lecture: Robotic Mission to Mars

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

7 pm

NASA's Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. Four tires with thick treads carry cameras and other scientific equipment.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s ongoing Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, which landed on Mars in February 2021, seeks to identify past habitable environments, search for signs of ancient microbial life, collect and cache samples for potential future return missions, and test technologies vital for future human exploration.  

Joel Hurowitz, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, has been involved with NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program since 2004 and is the deputy principal investigator for the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) on the Perseverance rover.   

In this Frontiers Lecture, Hurowitz will discuss the multiple generations of rovers that have gone to Mars, where we are now, and what the future of the Mars Exploration Program holds. 

This program utilizes OpenSpace software supported by NASA under award No NNX16AB93A. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.