Great BBC video on Mars Curiosity, featuring Mars Rover Driver Scott Maxwell

This is a great short video about the Mars Curiosity rover (@MarsCuriosity) from BBC Stargazing, interviewing Scott Maxwell (@marsroverdriver +Scott Maxwell, position self-explanatory!) and Adam Steltzner (@steltzner, the Entry, Descent and Landing lead).

It gives an insight into how the rover's travels are planned and programmed, and has plenty of detailed close-ups of the rover twin, known as Maggie (or George to some), in JPL's Mars Yard, showing the incredible intricacy of some of its equipment.


Great interview Scott!

In a slightly different vain, this dramatised piece was produced for the GQ Man of the Year (doesn't allow embedding).

It features Steltzner, Ann Devereaux (flight-system lead), Anita Sengupta (parachute-systems engineer, @anita_loving), Jody Davis (trajectory analyst, @TangoDeltaNom), Allen Chen (operations lead, play-by-play announcer, @icancallubetty), Raymond Baker (Mars-lander-engines lead), Steve Sell (war-room chief, @stevewsell).

While updating on things Curiosity, here's a great blog post on The Planetary Society by Mark Lemmon, one of the rover's camera operators, as such of of the key people behind all those wonderful photos we keep receiving from Mars.

That should satisfy any yearnings for Mars news for a little!