Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Mars Exploration Rover Flight Director Chris Lewicki

Episode Date: February 2, 2004

Opportunity is on a roll and Spirit is almost back to full health as we visit with the young Flight Director for the mission. We also hear from two more of the Student Astronauts.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yet another great week on Mars. This is Planetary Radio. Welcome back, everyone. If you watched the landing of Opportunity, the second Mars exploration rover, on the Meridiani Planum of Mars, Opportunity, the second Mars exploration rover on the Meridiani Planum of Mars. You saw a young, headset-wearing fellow standing in front of the MER team calling the shots. That young guy was Flight Director Chris Lewicki, and he'll join us on this week's show. Bruce Betts will also have the winner of our Name That Martian Outcropping Contest. Let's get started by meeting another of the student astronauts at JPL. I'll be right back with Chris.

Hi, I'm Whelan Tams from Singapore. I'm 14 years old. I'm one of the student astronauts elected by the Planetary Society. Vignette and I came at a very interesting time. We have managed to see a problem with spirit and a possible solution and the opportunity landing, which was really the best. We were in the science assessment room, which was nicknamed the EDL War Room. We had all the EDL scientists with us. The atmosphere was really, really tense, and the cheering that occurred after the landing was amazing. You can really feel these people's

pride. Of course, I'll be telling all my friends about the experience here, and hopefully I'll be able to make presentations to my school and maybe go through our country science center, but that is just tentative and what I really hope to do. Young as he is, University of Arizona graduate Chris Lewicki has already been exploring space and preparing to explore space for many years. His rise to flight director for the Mars Exploration Rover Missions at JPL has been nothing short of meteoric, if you'll pardon that odd metaphor. Like so many of our recent guests, getting a chance to speak with him meant adjusting for Martian business hours. So, Chris Lewicki, it's about 2.30 in the morning, Sunday morning Pacific time here on Earth. What's the time on Mars?

Meridiana Planum, it's Sol 8, about 2.17 in the afternoon. Yeah, I should have specified that side of Mars, right? Yeah, on the other side of Mars, it's about 12 hours earlier. You're not wearing two Mars watches, are you? No, fortunately, since the missions are just about exactly 12 hours off, you just add a RMOPM and you're at the right one. You have had a very busy few weeks and a very emotional few weeks for a very, very good reason,

and the excitement continues. We held off a little bit tonight because you were waiting for a command to come back from which, Spirit or Opportunity? We've been working Opportunity during its impact egress phase, and we egressed yesterday. The nominal service mission just really started moments ago. We kind of started our official process where we change gears and shift into the mode of operations that we will use for operating the rest of the mission, where we change from the engineering team really being in the driver's seat

to the science team being in the driver's seat. You had a quote along those lines about having this, well, Martian equivalent of a sports car to drive, but it turns out that now you guys have sort of become the valets and, what, hand the keys to the science team? Yeah, that's kind of how it works. You know, we had the luxury of building the sports car, so that's a distinction. But it really is a complicated process.

After we land, because of the complexity of this rover and the speed with which it was built and the fact that we had to cram it inside of this lander, the incredible science suite that we have on this thing. There's a lot of what are called robotic origami that needs to happen in order for it to resemble something that looks like a rover. And we just finished that process, firing the 125th and 126th pyro of the mission yesterday morning, driving forward, testing everything out,

and then doing our three-reader egress into the crater that we're in and onto the surface of Mars. There were 126 pyro devices that had to fire over the course of this mission so far? Yes, 126. That's redundant, so we really only needed half of them. So everyone has two. that had to fire over the course of this mission so far? Yes, 126. Good Lord. That's redundant, so we really only needed half of them. So everyone has two. But that kind of gives you a scale of the complexity of all the releases and the deployments that need to happen.

Yes, 63 is still a pretty impressive number. Yes. So I've seen a spectacular photo of Opportunity looking back at the landing platform at its own tracks in the Martian soil. How many times have you been just overwhelmed by the wonder of this mission? Many. Last night after we got back from our press conference, I just asked our imaging person, Justin Mackey, to put that rear half- cam picture up on the big screen and sat down in a chair, kicked my feet up on our desk in the mission support area,

and just stared in awe. Now, admit it, haven't you told Steve Squires at least once over the last week or so that, yeah, you meant to drop it into that crater? Sure we did. Although, I mean, they say it was an interplanetary hole-in-one, and we just got a talk this afternoon with regards to where the navigation and the science team thinks we ended up. And, you know, looking at this plane, the Meridiani Planum,

and, you know, how few craters there are on this plane, we really are extraordinarily lucky to be inside one of these craters and to start out the mission in a very interesting spot. And, you know, we have that real big crater that's about 600 meters away. I think it's towards the east. I'm really looking forward to, you know, the next couple of weeks when we go out and we look at that bedrock outcrop and start to examine this hematite in more detail. But the next picture on the mission that I'm most looking forward to, you'll remember the color picture that we took on Spirit of the lander.

And just the spectacular detail of looking what got us to the surface. I'm looking forward to a similar picture like that, but from the top of the crater, looking back down into it, with the lander in the bottom of it. That is going to be spectacular. That will be very cool. I suppose, as a Planetary Society representative, I should also take the opportunity to thank you and the rest of the team for those nice shots of the astrobots.

Yeah, the astrobot. What's her name again on opportunity? Sandy Moondust. Sandy Moondust. Sandy Moondust. We actually drove over Sandy Moondust during our egress. I heard about that. But it appears that she survived. Uh-huh. We were a little concerned, we're quite sure, but

just where things get mounted, that's where she ended up. On Spirit, Bud Sparling, is that his name? Biff. Biff Sparling. We avoided him because, of course, we had to turn and drive off the right side of the lander, so he fared better. Well, I'm sure Biff is going to rub that into his next diary or log entry when he next corresponds with Sandy.

Yes. You mentioned the hematite. How did you feel when you got that report from Phil Christensen and his mini-test instrument? It's very exciting. As engineers working on building the mission and designing it and going through just kind of all the mechanics of everything, we're stewards of these science instruments, some which we built on our own at JPL and others which were delivered to us by all the collaborating partners that we have.

You get a feel during the design process what they'll do and what they'll discover, but it really is a treat and it's spectacular when you realize that those instruments are doing their job and we are learning new things and making discoveries. In some cases, we're confirming what we expected and aren't too surprised. And it's really most interesting when we find things we don't expect, and that's why we go there in the first place. The science team, we started a tradition on SALT III in Spirit Landing

where we had a science team member come in every day and kind of give a briefing to the operations team on what their latest findings and discoveries were. And that's continued to this day, and we hope we'll be continuing to learn and discover through the end of the mission and can get those updates every day. That effort you just talked about, this close cooperation between the science and engineering teams, that's been a recurring theme on our show and has obviously been a very positive part of this mission.

Yeah. This being one of my first missions that I've worked on, I guess on the engineering side of things, I've participated at the University of Arizona in many of the scientific aspects of it in terms of instruments and delivering them and doing that. But I've been given the impression that for many missions in the past, it's been an us-and-them mentality, that there's this divide between the engineering and science team, and they struggle with each other in terms of competing interests.

But all around, the feeling that I've gotten on these two rover missions so far is that it's a shared experience, and we're working towards the same goal, and we're working together on that, and there's really no competition at all. We're having a good time together. Our guest this week on Planetary Radio is Chris Lewicki. He's speaking to us early morning here, but afternoon on the Meridiani Planum out there on Mars. He is Flight Director for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. And, Chris, if we can, when we come back from a break,

I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about what your role has been and how you got to this very, very nice place to be. Sure. So Planetary Radio will continue right after this. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets.

We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387.

And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, PlanetarySociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Chris Lewicki is our guest on Planetary Radio this week. It is early morning on Earth, early Sunday morning as we speak, but afternoon on the Meridiani Planum.

Chris, once again, thanks for joining us, and we'll let you get back to what's going on with the mission there in just a moment. But let's talk about what you're up to. First of all, this title of flight director, what does it really mean? What is your job? Well, the flight director calls to mind images of Gene Kranz and Apollo era type thing of everyone in the room in their headsets and one person up there calling the shots. Well, that's a heck of a legacy. Yeah, it is a heck of a legacy. And it's similar to that,

but it's not as commanding as it might sound. The flight director on the Mars Exploration Rover missions is responsible essentially for interfacing with the engineering operations team and carrying out the plan for the day, commanding the vehicle, making sure everything is safe, making sure we're meeting all of our marks. So what I'll do during any given day is we arrive in the morning and have a command approval meeting where we go around and determine what needs to be done for the day. And then after we've identified all that and checked out all the commands,

we'll go out into the operations room, brief the rest of the team, and start in on that process. And kind of one by one, there's some things that we can do without asking anyone, but other things will need input from the various subsystems, power, thermal systems, attitude control in terms of if we can safely proceed with what we're doing. So it's a lot of doing the polls, you know, are you go for this or that, and essentially going around the room and moving things forward. And that's exactly the role that I saw you playing and a lot of other people watching the webcast or watching NASA TV in one or another way,

particularly when Opportunity came down on Mars, and you appeared to be right up in the front calling the shots and even getting to shush people now and then. Yeah, that's always been a big concern during a landing especially, and the critical activities, they generate a lot of interest in the community around JPL and people who can walk in. But, you know, we still have to operate a spacecraft mission, and there are some risks to be taken, so we've got to quiet down the room.

Everyone's been real appreciative, though, that we've been so inclusive in our operations, and, you know, everyone who is around who has partaken in the mission, they deserve to be in that room and sharing in the excitement. So we don't want to run anyone out of the room because they've contributed as well. Anybody who is watching that webcast or has seen the photos of you might think, gee, he's a young-looking guy, and the fact is you are a young guy. How long have you been at JPL? I've been at JPL a total of four years now.

And I have wanted to put you on the radio show since we started about a year ago because I knew that you were what, it's not a terribly accurate title, but that you were a rover driver and helped to put this little dune buggy together. I say it's not accurate because what you're really doing, of course, is sending commands, as you were just before we spoke tonight. But to go from beginning at JPL to being flight director in four years seems like a pretty rapid rise. Yeah, it was. And a lot of people in my management and my peers tell me that it indeed was.

But fortunately, they thought that I was fit for the role. I've been really fortunate to be involved in what's called the assembly, test, and launch operations of the spacecraft and a lot of the systems engineering design. And in that, I had the opportunity to really pick up a lot of the details of just how this rover works. And really having built it and having written a lot of the procedures for how to put it together and learning from the inside out as we work out all the bugs in the flight software and fix all the problems in the hardware, that's really the best way to learn how something is to work is to take it apart.

And if you're putting it together, you can kind of learn in that process too. So I have a good assistance perspective on everything and have a familiarity from school in terms of just general how spacecraft missions work and have been extremely fortunate to be able to be given the opportunity to be flight director and seems to have worked out well so far. Absolutely. While you're originally from Wisconsin, I want to mention that you're another one of these guys coming out of Arizona.

And it was while you were a student there that it became, I guess, real clear that this was exactly the direction that you wanted to go in. Is that fair? That's fair. Actually, I think I knew that I wanted to work at JPL probably by the eighth grade. The Voyager mission was my inspiration in terms of space exploration. Some people want to be astronauts. I wanted to build robotic spacecraft.

And I kind of knew from the beginning that's what I wanted to do. That seemed like, you know, it wasn't something that seemed of chance. You know, people talk about the astronaut program and how you have to be selected and go through years and years of training all for a seven-day flight or whatever short mission.

But building robotic spacecraft is something that is a little bit more inclusive. And I really enjoy the challenge, and I look forward to that eventually feeding into supporting manned exploration of other planets. So I'll get back into the manned mission soon enough, I think. Talk about an organization called SEDS that is still very active and that you help to lead. Yeah. One of the things I got involved with when I was a freshman at the University of Arizona is Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

I saw it on a flyer the first year I went to school. It seemed like an interesting thing. They were having a meeting, and I showed up to the meeting, and it seemed like a bunch of interested students. The next meeting I showed up to, they elected me vice president. And then by the end of the year, I was president, and I was kind of taking things forward. Within about two years after that, I was chairman of the national board of the national organization. So SEDS has really been giving me lots of opportunities to interface with students around the United States and around the world.

And it's an organization that has kind of a loose structure in terms of what the interests are, what the focus is. At the University of Arizona, I had the opportunity to make it what I wanted it. And it's given me great exposure to various projects and certainly has given me a lot of the background that has allowed me to move forward at JPL. And it's continued to do that for a lot of the students who are involved in the SETS chapters around the world right now. So there are opportunities for young people who might want to get their start in space

exploration through this organization? Absolutely. Get your foot in the door wherever you can, working on something, even if it seems like the most menial of tasks. If it's related to space exploration, you'll eventually go farther. And the website, for anybody who wants more information, we'll put it on the Planetary Society site, right where you access this show. It's www.sedds.org. I want to mention how we got to know each other with only about a minute left here, and that was yet another organization of young people. I was one of the exceptions to that.

And that was Yuri's Night, where in 2001, we all celebrated the 40th anniversary of human spaceflight, and I got to know you because you helped make a lot of things happen with the computer network, and particularly the webcasts that I was involved with. That was another fun one. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I haven't been able to participate in those as much in recent years because we've been busy building spacecraft.

But Yuri's Night is another way to get a bunch of people who are passionate about a particular aspect of space exploration together and promoting that. And I look forward to getting back involved in that now that I'll have a little bit more time. What does come next for you with the Mars Exploration Rovers? Well, we have at least another 90 days of surface operations on both vehicles, and predictions are looking good for them lasting longer than they were designed to. So I'll carry out working on both vehicles, and predictions are looking good for them lasting longer than they were designed to. So I'll carry out working on both rovers. It's going to be exciting every day,

not like previous land admissions where we're kind of stuck in the same spot, taking pictures of the same thing over and over. We're going to be in a new site every couple of weeks with new things to find out. It is going to continue to excite us and inspire us to go see what's over the next hill. I don't think it's going to get tiring anytime soon. I agree with you there, and we're going to have a great time following your adventure and sharing in that adventure from the Planetary Society and through all the other coverage of the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Chris, thanks very much for joining us.

You're welcome. Chris Lewicki has been our guest on this week's edition of Planetary Radio, Flight Director for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. We're talking to him at JPL where he's got to get back to talking to rovers. And we'll be back with Bruce Betts and what's up right after this from another of the student astronauts. Hi, I'm Vignan Patamata from India. I'm 14 years old, and I'm privileged to be one of the 16 student astronauts selected by the Planetary Society in its Red Rover Goes to Mars student astronaut contest. We are working inside mission operations like active scientists,

and we have been participating in all the meetings, the science assessment meeting, the science context meeting, not only of spirit but also of opportunity. In this regard, we've been very lucky. When I return home, if I'm not telling my friends about my experiences here, they're going to kill me because they've been nudging me that, oh, the fellow who sits beside me is a student astronaut, so why can't I? Actually, in fact, they've been checking out the Planetary Society more than I do because they're out for, checking out for contests like the student astronaut to get a chance to participate inside mission operations.

So when I go back, I'll narrate my experiences and this will encourage them to be in touch with space missions and I guess that's good for them. I'm also trying to start a student group for which I'll be the leader. When we grow up, we'll activate a live Mars mission. We'll be the actual scientists of a Mars mission. Bruce, Super Bowl has just gone by on Earth, and I think the Super Bowl on Mars is the one that Opportunity is sitting in right now. Ah, I agree wholeheartedly. That's a great play off of words.

That's a championship joke you just made there. Thank you, sir. And it takes one to know one, Bruce Betts, the master of what's up, here at the end of every Planetary Radio program. What do you have for us this week? Can I get business cards with that on it? Sure. I'm the master of what's up. Well, what's up in the night sky?

Planets, as always. Well, not always, but we've got some spiffy ones. Go out there. Evening sky, the thing that looks so incredibly bright, that would be Venus. Morning sky, the thing that looks so incredibly bright, that would be Jupiter. Both of them are going to dance with the moon this week. On February 2nd, Saturn will be near the moon, just the lower right of the moon, and then it comes up in the evening.

And then Jupiter in the early morning sky or middle of night sky will be right next to the moon on February 8th. We've also got Mars in the night sky, dimming in the southwest evening time, playing with Saturn, still looking quite bright for Saturn, much dimmer than Jupiter or Venus, rising around sunset, setting around dawn above Orion, if you're looking in that general part of the sky. So how about we move on to something else? I know. How about this week in space history? 30 years ago. 30 years ago is when the last Skylab crew ended its 84-day occupancy of Skylab,

the last crew to occupy Skylab. 20 years ago, Bruce McCandless made the first untethered spacewalk. And 1971, we had Alan Shepard hitting golf balls on the moon. A good time. A good time had by all. Which leads us to... Venus rotates the opposite

direction of the other planets as seen from above. Or below. Doesn't matter. Okay? And I read that the thinking now is that that happened because Venus got impacted by something big that actually flipped it pole to pole. Either that or a childhood trauma. They're not sure which.

Okay. They're two big competing theories. Venus doesn't like to talk about that. No, no, no, no, no, no. I can't discuss what I know about that. So, moving on, shall we proceed straight to the trivia contest, Matt? Yeah, I think we should, because we have a very, very fine winner to the humorous question that you posed last week.

So the humorous question being, scientists, they like to name the rocks at landing sites. And on Mars, they've had various humorous names going from Big Joe, Viking 1, to all sorts of cartoon characters. With Pathfinder, we asked you, at the Opportunity Landing site, there's that big outcrop of rocks that they're going to charge over to shortly. What should the name of those rocks be? Funniest answer, in our esteemed opinions, wind. Wind. Wind. Wind. So, tell us. Tell us a story. What should the name of those rocks be? Funniest answer in our esteemed opinions, wins. Wins. Wins.

Wins. So, tell us. Tell us a story. You bet. Fanfare, please. We didn't have... I should have known that I'd get one if I asked. We didn't have a whole lot of entries.

I think we stumped a lot of people on this one. But I think that our winner can be very, very proud. It's Lee Valance, one of our regulars. He listens to the show in Japan, obviously at the Planetary Society website. And here is Lee's nomination for the name of that outcrop of rock not far from the Opportunity rover. Elvis, the outcrop of rock. And he goes on. Opportunity, a kamikaze pilot resilient through a six-minute clutch of death,

no doubt craves a morale boost. Ideally, we would send her Elvis, the undisputed king of rock, that Elvis has left the building. Rock on, Opportunity. And congratulations, Lee. Excellent job. Opportunity has left the land. And, you know, I think a great thing after this would be a report from the Odyssey team,

one of the two orbiters circling Mars, that they got an amazing close-up and that in the right light, that outcropping looks, well, like you know who. Who? Oh! There it is. Okay. looks, well, like you know who. Who? Oh. There it is. Okay. Wow, I'm all shook up after that one. Yeah, well, you know.

Step on my red suede shoes. It's a strange day here in Southern California. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, on to our next trivia contest. Not nearly as much fun, but just as challenging. Well, not that challenging either. But fun. Come to our website. Win a Planetary Radio t-shirt.

Enter this contest at planetary.org slash radio. And I may even give you the question. The question for this week. What were the backup landing sites for Spirit and Opportunity? Of course, Spirit landed in Gusev Crater. Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum. There were two backup sites. What are the names of those areas on Mars? They were on Mars, right? One of them was not Las Vegas to catch Elvis' late show. on Mars, right? One of them was not Las Vegas to catch Elvis' late show.

No, no it was not. Nor was it Area 51 or South Dakota. So how do people enter? Actually, those are backups, too, but the ones we're looking for were the ones on Mars. Go to plantrader.org slash radio, figure out how to enter there, win a t-shirt, have fun. Bruce, we're almost done, but I thought you might want to update us on the Astrobots, especially since Chris Lewicki has acknowledged running over Sandy. Indeed. People can go to planetary.org to find out what our latest is. Right now it appears Sandy's okay, but we're still doing some checkouts on things. We do have a little information back, but we're awaiting more.

All we can hear Biff doing is actually laughing right at the moment. So he seems to be fine, or at least no different than usual. So come hear about Biff's styling, Sandy Moondust, planetary.org, planetary.org slash astrobots. Have a good time. And, everyone, look up at the night sky and think about a groundhog impersonating Elvis. Thank you. Good night. I don't have a shadow of a doubt.

That's Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us each week here at the end of Planetary Radio. That's it for this week. Next time, it's back to Mars and beyond as we check in on the Stardust Comet mission. I hope you'll be back to continue our voyage. Thanks for listening.