Abstract:
By now you’ve heard by now of the amazing science return out of the many missions in our solar system, but how do we do it? How do the missions survive the extreme temperatures, radiation environments, and more? What types of instruments can we use, and what information can we get out of them? Why do we need all this information? Come learn about the “how” of solar system exploration at this talk. We’ll walk through each planet’s extremes and how we’ve gotten past these challenges to explore the planets of our solar system and look at some of the highlights of the science.
Bio:
Keri Bean is currently a mission operations engineer in the science plan integration group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. She currently works on the Dawn mission in the asteroid belt as a science planning & sequencing engineer. Before starting at JPL, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in meteorology at Texas A&M University. While at Texas A&M University, she worked on several NASA missions including the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Phoenix Mars Lander, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Curiosity Mars Rover. Her focus was on Martian meteorology and she studied the water and dust cycles of Mars. She also led groups of her peers in winning in several NASA engineering competitions for designing instruments for the now-defunct Project Constellation.
The public is invited to attend and learn the enjoyment of amateur astronomy with these educational and enjoyable speakers.
