Meet NASA Mars Rover Engineer
and Space Explorer Kobie Boykins
Sunday, May 16, 1 p.m.
NASA Mars rover engineer Kobie Boykins will meet Museum visitors at the full-scale model of the next Mars rover,
Curiosity, on exhibit in the Museum during the month of May. Boykins will talk informally about
Curiosity and the previous Mars rovers that he helped design,
Spirit and
Opportunity. Those solar-powered rovers--that landed on Mars in 2004--far exceeded their 90-day mechanical life expectancies, and
Opportunity is still roaming Mars today. Boykins, a mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, designed and helped build the celebrated solar arrays that power the rovers. He is currently working on
Curiosity.