As NASA's newest Mars Rover Perseverance dropped onto Mars Thursday afternoon team members at The Sierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) Durham office held their breath.
"I mean, certainly there is a lot of anticipation," explained Jeff Mobley, SNC Director of Engineering for the Durham Operation. "I mean everything gets fully tested out and vetted before it ever gets put on the spacecraft to go to Mars so, you know, we have extremely high confidence this is going to work. But, you know," Mobley added.
Mobley is a proud NCSU graduate who has been with SNC for sixteen years. "We as a division, design custom products for space," he explained. SNC's work on Perseverance marks the 14th mission to Mars supported by SNC. For the Perseverance Mission, SNC provided eight unique components that have been used in 17 applications on the rover. They're used in the robotic arm, turret coring drill, and catching assembly.