Mars Exploration: Curiosity and Beyond - with Anita Sengupta

NASA scientist Anita Sengupta talks us through the work behind brining the Curiosity rover to Mars and where we may go from there.
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In August of 2012 NASA landed the largest and most capable robotic geologist in history, on the surface of Mars. The Curiosity Rover is on a journey to determine past and present habitability of the Red Planet. Anita Sengupta is one of the lead NASA engineers who developed the system to land Curiosity. She will describe the challenges of landing on Mars and what is over the horizon on our human journey to Mars.
Anita Sengupta is the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has been designing and developing plasma propulsion and entry, descent and landing systems for the past decade. Prior to CAL she was the parachute systems engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission. She holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Boston University and a MS and PhD in Aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California, where she is a Research Associate professor.
This talk took place at the Royal Institution on 16 June 2016.
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