{"id":17944,"date":"2019-09-11T18:47:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/after-leading-mars-rover-missions-steve-squyres-joins-blue-origin-as-chief-scientist\/"},"modified":"2019-09-11T18:47:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:47:01","slug":"after-leading-mars-rover-missions-steve-squyres-joins-blue-origin-as-chief-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/after-leading-mars-rover-missions-steve-squyres-joins-blue-origin-as-chief-scientist\/","title":{"rendered":"After leading Mars rover missions, Steve Squyres joins Blue Origin as chief scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_520923\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-520923\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-520923\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/190913-squyres-630x360.jpg\" alt=\"Steve Squyres\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-520923\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers, will become Blue Origin\u2019s chief scientist. (Cornell University Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Just months after closing out the 15-year-long Opportunity rover mission on Mars, Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres is taking advantage of a new opportunity: the post of chief scientist at Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture.<\/p>\n<p>Today Blue Origin confirmed that Squyres, 63, will be joining the company, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash.<\/p>\n<p>Squyres has been involved in NASA space missions including Voyager\u2019s trip past the solar system\u2019s giant planets and Magellan\u2019s voyage to Venus. But his main claim to fame is his stint as principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers.<\/p>\n<p>The twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, bounced onto different locations on the Red Planet\u2019s surface in 2004, beginning missions that were baselined for 90 days. To the team\u2019s surprise, Spirit ended up lasting six years, and Opportunity continued to send data back until the solar-powered rover went out of contact during a massive Martian dust storm in mid-2018.<\/p>\n<p>After months of trying to re-establish contact, NASA declared an end to the mission in February. \u201cIt was an honorable end, and it came a whole lot later than any of us expected,\u201d Squyres said at the time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Mars rover Opportunity ends mission after 15 years\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-DsiHTGovGI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The rover missions confirmed that Mars was once wetter, warmer and more hospitable to life than it is today \u2014 findings that have been expanded upon during the Curiosity rover mission that began in 2012 and is still in its prime.<\/p>\n<p>Squyres is the author of a 2005 book about the rover missions called \u201cRoving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet.\u201d He chaired the NASA Advisory Council from 2011 to 2016, and served as an \u201caquanaut\u201d on NASA\u2019s underwater NEEMO missions in 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n<p>He was the principal investigator for the proposed CAESAR mission, which would have captured a sample from Comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and brought it back to Earth. CAESAR was a finalist to become NASA\u2019s next New Frontiers project but lost out to the Dragonfly mission to Titan in June.<\/p>\n<p>The main extraterrestrial target on Blue Origin\u2019s agenda is the moon. In May, Bezos unveiled a mockup of Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon lunar lander, which is considered a strong contender for NASA\u2019s missions to the moon in the 2020s.<\/p>\n<p>Squyres was listed as a member of the Blue Moon science advisory board at the time of the unveiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers, will become Blue Origin\u2019s chief scientist. (Cornell University Photo) Just months after closing out the 15-year-long Opportunity rover mission on Mars, Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres is taking advantage of a new opportunity: the post of chief scientist at Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,367,4932,2723,4396],"class_list":["post-17944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-mars","tag-opportunity-rover","tag-steve-squyres","tag-tech-moves"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}