Ep 126 | Mars Rover Driver Dr. Jeng Yen Discusses The Age of Space Exploration

Apr 19, 2021

01:13:03

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Episode notes

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Dr. Jeng Yen is a NASA scientist and the “driver” of the Perseverance Mars rover. I initially interviewed Dr. Yen on April 9th. We spoke about how he was first inspired to join NASA by the first Mars rover Sojourner, what’s been discovered about Mars since then, the age of space exploration, the work of Mars rover Perseverance and the Mars helicopter Ingenuity which is poised to be the first aircraft to fly on Mars.

I spoke with Dr. Yen again this past Friday, April 16th and he gave me an important update on the Mars helicopter Ingenuity which has had to delay the date of its first flight on Mars.

We are excited to learn that on Monday April 19th Ingenuity has indeed made history as the first aircraft humans have flown on another planet- Mars! You can watch the first flight of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter live from mission control here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI

I’m so pleased to be sharing my full interview with Dr. Yen on this momentous day.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How Dr. Yen’s interest in working for NASA was inspired by the first rover on Mars the Sojourner in 1997
How Dr. Yen’s previous work in Minnesota on army high performance computing involved vehicle design
What it’s like to live and work in Mars time
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity
The four Mars exploration missions that Dr. Yen has been on and what each accomplished
Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity’s discovery that there was past surface water on Mars
Mars rover Curiosity and where it is in relation to the Perseverance rover
What the interface used to drive the rover is like
The Phoenix lander mission
The InSight mission which is still running and learning about the core of Mars
What happens if a part of the Perseverance rover breaks
What happened when the Curiosity rover dropped its drill
How long Perseverance will be on Mars
The power that Perseverance runs on that allows it to last for years
What is involved in landing a rover
How video footage of Perseverance’s landing was captured
How the Mars helicopter Ingenuity communicates with the Perseverance rover
China’s plans to land a rover on Mars
How Perseverance will be taking samples from Mars to see if there is any evidence of life on Mars and how these samples will be found and retrieved by a future rover
If Elon Musk’s SpaceX could be the first to land humans on Mars
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin
Will it be possible to colonize Mars in the next 30 years
Which planet surface will NASA explore next
The Europa clipper
Why NASA uses the discovery of water as a standard to explore for life
The Phoenix lander mission
Where the name “Perseverance” for the current Mars rover came from
Who names the Mars rovers
The quest to answer the question are we alone in this universe
STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) education
How Dr. Yen founded the San Marino High School FRC (First Robotics Competition)
Dr. Yen’s advice for people interested in working in the field of space exploration or aeronautics