Meet the Spartan who helped NASA go to Mars (again) As a high school student, Terry Himes dreamed of exploring space. Today, the Spartan who graduated in 1975 from Michigan State University’s College of Engineering is living his dream.
“Just today, I was building the relay commands for Mars 2020, but also Curiosity and InSight,” says Himes, a spacecraft and software engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA’s Perseverance rover arrived on Mars, landing safely on Feb. 18, joining the missions Himes references. The InSight lander touched down on Mars in 2018, and Curiosity is a rover that’s clocked more than 3,000 Martian days on the red planet.