(This got really long so I am breaking it into two posts. I hope to have the second half up in a day or two.)
So, THAT happened.
…I don’t even know where to begin.
Last week was the most incredible, overwhelming, and exhausting experience. I want to pause and write down some memories before I get too embedded in other work.
Sunday, August 5, 2012. This was the day that had been lurking in the back of my mind for a long time – it once seemed so far away, and then suddenly it was upon us. Around noon I got up and played with my toddler for a few last hours before heading in to JPL. I had three jobs to carry out in the next 24 hours: 1. Make sure the science team was out of the instrument rooms and settled into the science discussion room for the evening; 2. support the team in any way for planning sol 1, from getting the A/V system to work to making sure the scientists knew where to go; 3. Be the point of contact for the HiRISE EDL image.
The science team vacated our usual working rooms for the duration of entry, descent, and landing (EDL). There were so many VIPs and visitors on-Lab that everyone non-essential for the actual landing moved out to give them room. The science team has a spare set of rooms for team discussions and side meetings, so we moved in there and let the engineering team members who had no where else to go take over our other rooms.
In our discussion room, we had two giant screens showing the “Eyes on the Solar System” animation of MSL approaching Mars. For several hours, science team members had friends take pictures of themselves in front of the screen; in ones and twos or grouped by instrument teams, with computer graphics of Mars and MSL playing over their faces. It was team member Laurie Leshin’s birthday, and she brought in cake. Keri Bean made two cakes, one in the shape of an astronaut and one as WALL*E. This was the first time so many of the science team had gathered together; the room was filled with laughter and hugs as the members of our temporary family continued to trickle in. Everyone was giddy, though that was masking an underlying tension; a few times I overheard someone say dismissively “Oh, it will work, it will be fine,” and I knew that they were as nervous as I was.
I work with a scientist who has been deeply involved on a number of missions, and she refused to be at JPL for the landing. She was here when Mars Polar Lander was lost, and said that depression that gripped the Lab at that time was something she couldn’t deal with again. I thought of her while I sat in that room with the MSL science team.
A few team members spoke to the group briefly, including John Grotzinger our project scientist. We watched a short NOVA program on MSL, and had a good time cheering and catcalling at the team members who were interviewed, and hissing anytime the narrator suggested that all might not go according to plan. And then it was time, and we watched the same NASA feed of the control room as you did. I’m not even going to try to describe the tension in the room; you could see it in the faces of the engineers in the control room on feed.
When that first hazcam thumbnail came down, the room erupted. Oh, we had cheered at every step of the way, and had lept up in joy when the touchdown was confirmed. But the roar at that first image! Jim Bell, one of the MMM (camera) team members, started jumping up and down yelling at the processing pipeline to go faster. And then –
I want to emphasize that we were not expecting those next images. We thought we were going to be lucky to get a single thumbnail before Mars Odyssey set. Scientists had turned away from the screen, hugging and kissing and celebrating. But when that shot of Curiosity’s shadow appeared on the screen, well, that’s when we all collectively lost our shit.
Amid the joyful screaming, the some folks pushed to the front of the room and began trying to decipher the image: what size are those rocks? Do you think we’re sitting on something like gravel? Could that smudge be Mt Sharp? How soon do you think it will be before we can get ChemCam to take some laser shots at that rock? And this was with the lens caps still on.
We watched the first press conference and I enjoyed seeing the EDL team giddy to the point of incoherence with their incredible accomplishments. And then it was time for the science team to move back into the planning rooms, and begin Sol 1 planning. During one discussion in the early hours of Sunday morning, the scientist I was standing next to began giggling. When I looked at her, she explained: “It isn’t an ORT [Operational Readiness Test]!” And she was right; every so often I had to just stop and realize that we were no longer doing our practice runs, but had actually made it and were really operating this giant rover on Mars.
The science team continued on their way, but I had to start focusing on my next task of Landing Night. I not only work for MSL science operations, I also work for MRO as the HiRISE Investigation Scientist. This meant that I was the point of contact between the HiRISE team and the rest of JPL for the image that HiRISE took of MSL on its way through the martian atmosphere. We targeted the image of MSL on the parachute so that, if anything had gone wrong, we would be able to see if the parachute had deployed. The worry about that potential outcome had gone away, which left me with one final looming activity: the press conference.
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