Andrew Plave knows more than a little about Perseverance, both literally and figuratively.
The 2012 South Lyon East valedictorian was determined to work for NASA. He applied numerous times, endured rejection and finally had to make a case for himself in front of about 30 of some of the smartest people on the planet before he ultimately landed a job as an engineer in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California.
Now Plave is living his dream, assessing data sent from Perseverance, NASA’s newest rover, which landed on Mars on Feb. 18.
“It takes awhile to communicate with a rover on a different planet, it’s not a joystick we are driving around,” Plave said. “We send up entire days’ worth of activities for the rover to do. There are times in the day when we get data back and assess how it is going and make adjustments.” Read more
Source: www.hometownlife.com
Author Name: Susan Bromley
Publication Date: March 3, 2021