I'm actually putting something together
that's flying to Mars.
My name is Michelle Tomey Colizzi and I'm helping to
protect the next Mars rover.
The main objective of this rover is to cache
samples.
They're drilling core samples
and then they will drop them in specific locations
on the surface of Mars in preparation for a sample return mission.
So what we can see over here is the stacked spacecraft.
My role on Mars 2020 is
assembly, test, and launch operations,
which is ATLO,
where all of the delivered components of hardware come together
and make the spacecraft.
In the southwest corner over here we have our flight Mars 2020 rover
and we have the
entire mobility team installing the
"rocker-bogie" mobility system.
We try to
test all of our hardware to the
environments that we would see for
launch of the vehicle,
for cruise, the journey from Earth to Mars,
for the entry
into the Mars atmosphere, for landing,
as well as the surface of Mars.
Every once in a while we come up and take a quick look.
With all the craziness you kind of lose
sight of it a little bit.
Over the years it becomes like your nonliving child
so you really want to see it do well and
perform the best that it can.
It reminds you that, "Hey, everything that you're touching
and all this hard work that
you're putting in and the long hours,
if it was easy everyone would be doing it."
We're sending hardware that we built on Earth
to another planet to go and do science.
