2 YEARS UNTIL LAUNCH
GFX LOWER THIRD: 2 YEARS UNTIL LAUNCH
ROB MANNING: And the pressure on the team is really phenomenal. So we had to come up with an amazing team working around the clock to pull it off.
PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE Scott Hubbard: “Well I am indeed very very happy that we are able to announce that we are returning to Mars, this time in force, with twins. The Mars Twin Rovers.” STEVE SQUYRES: We named them Spirit and Opportunity. This was 10 years of writing proposals that finally produced the result that I’d been dreaming of. But I think if I had known at that time what an arduous path it was gonna be from that point to actually get on the surface of Mars I wouldn’t have felt quite as elated as I did.
KOBIE BOYKINS: From a young age, I was into Star Trek . I wanted to be Geordi La Forge.
PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: Star Trek : “Engineering, this is La Forge. Shut down power to all transporters, I’m on my way.”
KOBIE BOYKINS: But, I didn’t really know what that job was. You know, I knew they were the “engineer,”
but I didn’t know what that was. I just knew I wanted to be the person that always fixed things. Building Spirit and Opportunity really started on just a whiteboard. Okay, we want to have a 90-day mission and we want to be able to find evidence of past water. Okay, what do we need to do then? And then this team of different engineers has to bring that rover to life.
PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: “We’re gonna take our seats, let’s get started.”
PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE JENNIFER TROSPER:
“Okay. I’m up here as the project engineer, in order to make sure that the big picture fits together between the flight system and mission system. I’ll briefly go over launch, cruise, and EDL.” JENNIFER TROSPER: Our whole objective was to build two autonomous solar-powered rovers that could survive 90 Sols, three months on Mars. And we were really hoping at least one of them would work. But we knew that if we don’t get it right, we’re gonna miss our launch date. STEVE SQUYRES: The schedule for mission to Mars is literally driven by the alignment of the planets and if you miss that launch window, the next one comes around 26 months later.
ROB MANNING: That is no time to design, develop, test two rovers, and put them on two rockets.
KOBIE BOYKINS, SENIOR ENGINEER
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