ECE Undergraduate Mines Data from Mars Curiosity Rover

Undergraduate Gordon Downs is helping develop new ways to analyze data from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover as a collaborator on the Mars Science Laboratory science team.

In 2011, Gordon Downs and his father watched the launch of the rocket that took the Curiosity rover from Cape Canaveral to Mars. Now, as a member of the Mars Science Laboratory team, he helps analyze the X-ray diffraction data that Curiosity's CheMin instrument sends back to Earth.

Downs, a double major in electrical and computer engineering and mathematics, has been working with the project for about a year. "It’s a testament to my education at the University of Arizona that an undergrad can have the opportunity to contribute to such significant science," he said. "I feel really lucky!"