Touchdown on the Red Planet Mechanical engineering alumna describes ‘seven minutes of terror’ before historic Mars 2020 landing.
BY DEBRA CANO RAMOS, PHOTOS COURTESY OF NASA/JPL-CALTECH
AS A CHILD, LAUREN DUCHARME WONDERED if there is life beyond Earth. She not only reached for the stars, but also helped land a spacecraft on Mars to fnd out.
The Cal State Fullerton alumna, a systems fight engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is part of the team of engineers, software developers and scientists working on the historic Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission. The rover is designed to search for signs of past life on the red planet, and collect soil and rock samples that will eventually be returned to Earth.
The rover, afectionately known as “Percy” to her team, touched down safely in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, following a nearly seven-month, 292.5-million-mile journey to Mars.
“When I heard mission control shout out ‘touchdown confrmed!’ I felt this wave of relief and joy, and started bawling,” shares DuCharme, a Class of 2015 mechanical engineering graduate.
“I’ve dreamed of landing a spacecraft on another planet since I was a little girl — and I had fnally done it. As soon as my husband saw me cheer, he ran into the kitchen to get a bottle of champagne and he let me pop the cork to celebrate.”
The spectacular landing sparked a food of phone calls, text messages, social media messages and emails from DuCharme’s friends and family congratulating her and the rest of the NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory teams.
DuCharme is a member of the mission’s fault protection system team responsible for developing, testing and validating fight software and hardware, which maintains the health and safety of the rover.
The day before landing, DuCharme, who is working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was on a console used by mission control to monitor diferent aspects of spacefight. She closely watched the health status of the spacecraft traveling nearly 12,500 miles per hour. The team was preparing for the spacecraft’s fnal entry, descent and landing into the Martian atmosphere.
Titan Magazine: Spring/Summer 2021 1 “During our overnight shift, we observed the state of the vehicle while the navigation team analyzed the data from the rover. Our job was to determine if we were on a stable trajectory, and whether we needed to make any last-minute changes to ensure a safe landing,” she relays. “I had mixed emotions the entire shift. While I was a little sad because it was my last shift of cruise operations, I was excited for us to land and begin our surface operations.”
DuCharme was most anxious about the harrowing fnal minutes of the entry, descent and landing from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars, dubbed the “seven minutes of terror.”
“Now that I have experienced it frsthand, I can honestly say the ‘seven minutes of terror’ was truly seven minutes of terror. Even before the spacecraft separated from the cruise stage, my heart was racing and I couldn’t sit still. I watched the telemetry from home and listened to JPL mission control commentary. I hoped it was all good news, and it was — a picture-perfect landing.” Star-Struck for Space
A 6-year-old DuCharme became awestruck with the universe while visiting her grandfather in Arizona and searching for satellites with her dad in the desert sky.
“I’ll never forget the way the sky looked at night. I’d never seen so many stars in my life. I remember being so overwhelmed, not wanting to even blink because it was so beautiful.”
While studying engineering at Cal State Fullerton, she joined the student-led Titan Rover team, which designs and builds the next generation of Mars rover for collegiate competition.
As an undergraduate, she landed an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2014 and worked on developing leading technologies to return Mars rock and soil samples back to Earth for analysis. Over the next several years as an intern, she had many roles on the Mars 2020 project through the development, testing and operations phases.
DuCharme continued her education at USC, where she graduated with a master’s degree in astronautical engineering and studied spacecraft dynamics. In 2017, she was hired as a full-time fight systems engineer.
“Since Mars 2020 was announced by NASA in 2012, just when I was beginning my major courses at Cal State Fullerton, I like to think that Perseverance and I grew up together,” she says.
Titan Magazine: Spring/Summer 2021 2 Video: Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown on Mars (Ofcial NASA Video) youtube.com/watch?v=4czjS9h4Fpg Searching for Ancient Martian Life
Now that Percy has landed, DuCharme has transitioned her work from the cruise operations team to the surface operations team.
“On Mars, we are testing our instruments, driving the rover around and using our sample caching system to survey the Martian surface,” she says.
“Over the next couple of months, we will complete preliminary checks of our systems and instruments, unstow our remote sensing mast and robotic arm, fy our robotic helicopter, ‘Ingenuity,’ to scout paths for the rover, and ease into our day-to-day science activities. We are monitoring the mission around the clock.”
Since Mars has slightly longer days than Earth, DuCharme and the surface operations team are living on “Mars time” with each day shifting about 45 minutes. She works atypical hours, sometimes starting before dawn or through the night.
“This means over time, we will start to be nocturnal, and then slowly make our way back to a somewhat normal schedule when Earth and Mars days align,” she explains. “Once all the teams are confdent their subsystems are working as expected, and we trust ourselves and the vehicle, we will eventually live on Earth time again. It’s intense, but quite exciting.”
For DuCharme, what’s also thrilling is the possibility of fnding signs of Martian life. The landing site in Jezero Crater — over 3.5 billion years old — is an ancient delta once fooded with water that scientists believe could have sustained life long ago.
“I can’t wait to see the discoveries Perseverance makes and the answers she gathers,” DuCharme ponders. “With the vastness of space, I frmly believe, we are not alone.” ◼
Video: Meet Mars explorer Lauren DuCharme facebook.com/watch/?ref=external&v=166267332081137
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Titan Magazine: Spring/Summer 2021 3 Mars 2020 Fun Facts
Hitching a Ride
“Ingenuity” Robotic Helicopter The car-size Perseverance rover, named “Percy,” brought along the small, autonomous aircraft (weighs less than 4 pounds) for the frst test of powered fight on another planet.
Sounds of Mars Percy is carrying a pair of microphones to provide interesting and historic audio of the arrival and landing at Mars.
Send Your Name to Mars Percy has three fngernail-sized chips on board containing 10,932,295 names. These names include alumna Lauren DuCharme, her husband, Daniel Tchui ’13 (B.S. mechanical engineering), and her parents, Kelly and James DuCharme.
Percy’s New Home on the Red Planet
● Average Temperature: -81°F ● Length of Day: 24 hours 37 minutes ● Length of Year: 687 days (almost twice as long as a year on Earth) ● Weight and Gravity: 100 lbs on Earth = 38 lbs on Mars ● Navajo Names: Percy’s team, in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Ofce of the President and Vice President, is naming features of scientifc interest with words in the Navajo language. The frst is a rock named “Máaz” — the Navajo word for “Mars.”
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Titan Magazine: Spring/Summer 2021 4 History Buf Lands a Space Career
AT CAL STATE FULLERTON, JONLUC CHRISTENSEN ’16 (B.A. history) learned how to think like a historian. Now as a records management specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, he is archiving the history of space missions at the JPL Archives and assisting in Freedom of Information Act requests for public records.
The most exciting part of my job at JPL is … Working with some of the world’s most brilliant scientists and engineers, and preserving their accomplishments for future generations. Nothing is more exciting than watching a mission successfully launch, like Mars 2020, and knowing that you were a small part of it.
My role in the Perseverance rover project is .... To handle, process and store some of the project’s records. The larger part of my role with Perseverance will begin when the mission ends and documentation for the JPL Archive begins.
I landed a career at JPL because … My education at Cal State Fullerton in history became the foundation for my graduate studies and work. I am a proud member of the Phi Alpha Theta and Lambda Alpha honor societies at CSUF, and produced my frst scholarly article in CSUF’s Welebaethan: A Journal of History. I completed a master’s degree in library and information sciences at San José State University, and obtained a summer internship at JPL that eventually turned into a full-time position.
Three CSUF educators who stand out are ...
● Jochen Burgtorf, professor of history, who encouraged me to take risks. ● David Freeman, lecturer in history, who has been an incredible mentor. ● Ronald Rietveld, professor emeritus of history, who inspired me to follow my academic passions and to explore outside my comfort zone.
To be successful with a history degree … Use your transferable skills — storytelling, writing and learning from past experiences — and do not be afraid to reach for jobs that are not directly related to the feld. I strongly believe that historians make for incredible “bias sorters,” communicators, problem-solvers and confict managers.
Titan Magazine: Spring/Summer 2021 5