26 – Remembering Pathfinder

On July 4th, 1997, NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission touched down on Mars, ending a 15 years period where no spacecraft operated in the Red Planet. Twenty years later, the mission’s impact on our understand of Mars is still felt. Jake is joined by Matt Golombek (Project Scientist), Brian Muirhead (Flight Systems Manager & Deputy Project Manager), Donna Shirley (Mars Exploration Program Manager), and Tanya Harrison (Planetary Scientist) who recount the story and explain why the mission plays such an important role in the last two decades of Mars exploration.

Links

• The original Pathfinder Press Kit for Landing Day at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Launch Footage
• Paper by Matt Golombek on the Mission
• CNN Coverage of the Landing
  • Part 1
  • Part 2

WeMartians music is “RetroFuture”, “Electrodoodle”, “We Got Trouble”, “Aretes” and “Heartwarming” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Additional sound effects by Sentuniman licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/