Steve Squyres
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Steven W. Squyres (born 1957) is a professor of astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. He is also a former student of the late Carl Sagan.
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[edit] Education
Squyres received his B.S. in Geology in 1978, his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1982, and then spent five years as a postdoctoral associate and research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center before returning to Cornell as a faculty member. He received the H. C. Urey Prize from the Planetary Division of the American Astronomical Society in 1987. In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science by the Franklin Institute.
[edit] NASA
Squyres has participated in many of NASA's planetary exploration missions, including the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Magellan to Venus, and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission. Along with his work on MER, he is also a co-investigator on the 2003 Mars Express and 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, a member of the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Flight Investigation Team for the Mars Odyssey mission, and a member of the imaging team for the Cassini to Saturn. Squyres recently served as Chair of the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council.
ABC News has featured Squyres as Person of the Week for January 9, 2004, and was noted by anchor Peter Jennings on World News Tonight that he "has gotten us all excited". [1] Squyres was also given the 2005 Wired Rave Award for science by Wired for overseeing the creation of Spirit and Opportunity that have, at the time, lasted three times longer than expected (300 vs. 90 martian days). [2]
He has written a book called Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet (published August 2005; ISBN 1-4013-0149-5). Also, the IMAX production Roving Mars was a film made from the book. (Disney).
[edit] Mars Science Laboratory
Squyres has said in an interview that he will not be the principal investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory, due to launch in 2009, as he did not want to be away from his family again for a long period (as happened during the Mars Exploration Rover Mission). [1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Cornell Astronomy Dept.
- Scientific American: Father of Spirit and Opportunity With the success of twin rovers on the Red Planet, Steven W. Squyres and his team are showing how to conduct robotic missions—and setting the stage for human exploration
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Squyres bio at Zip Code Mars page
- Mars Exploration Rovers Mission Update blog
- Squyres receives Benjamin Franklin Medal for Mars Rover leadership; meanwhile, rovers keep proving their mettle, Cornell Chronicle (20 March 2007)
