Steve Squyres

Dr. Steve Squyres

Steven W. Squyres (born 1957) is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER). He is the recipient of the 2004 Carl Sagan Memorial Award and the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Communication in Planetary Science. On October 28, 2010, Dr. Squyres received the 2010 Mines Medal for his achievements as a researcher and professor. He is the brother of Academy Award-nominated film editor Tim Squyres.

Education

Squyres was raised in the town of Wenonah in southern New Jersey.

Squyres attended Gateway Regional High School in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey. He received his B.S. in Geological Sciences in 1978 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy (Planetary Studies) from Cornell (where he was a student of Carl Sagan) in 1981, and then spent five years as a postdoctoral associate and research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center before returning to Cornell as a faculty member. He received the H. C. Urey Prize from the Planetary Division of the American Astronomical Society in 1987. In 2007, he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science [2] by the Franklin Institute. He is also a member of the college fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE).

NASA

Dr. Steve Squyres reacts to the images of Spirit leaving its lander.

Squyres has participated in many of NASA's planetary exploration missions. From 1978 to 1981 he was an associate of the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn, participating in analysis of imaging data. He subsequently worked as a radar investigator on the Magellan mission to Venus, and with the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission. Along with his work as principal investigator on the MER (Mars Exploration Rovers), he is also a co-investigator on the 2003 Mars Express and 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, a member of the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Flight Investigation Team for the Mars Odyssey mission, and a member of the imaging team for the Cassini to Saturn. Squyres recently served as Chair of the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC). In November 2011, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named Squyres chairman of the NAC, succeeding Dr. Kenneth Ford, the founder and director of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

ABC News featured Squyres as its Person of the Week for January 9, 2004, and World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings said he "has gotten us all excited." Squyres was also given the 2005 Wired Rave Award for science by Wired for overseeing the creation of Spirit and Opportunity that had, at the time, lasted thirteen times longer than expected (1174 vs. 90 Martian days).

Squyres has written a book called Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet (published August 2005; ISBN 1-4013-0149-5), and appeared on the June 7, 2006 episode of The Colbert Report to discuss it, Mars, and MER. The Disney IMAX documentary film Roving Mars was made from the book.

Squyres was interviewed on 60 Minutes: "The Next Giant Leap For Mankind - 60 Minutes Reports On NASA's Plans To Return Men To The Moon In Preparation For A Manned Flight To Mars" on Sunday, April 6, 2008.

Squyres performing underwater EVA during NEEMO 15 mission.

A portrait of Squyres by Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon was on view in National Portrait Gallery's "Americans Now" exhibition, from August 20, 2010 through July 10, 2011.

On September 19, 2011, NASA announced that Squyres would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 15 undersea exploration mission from October 17-30, 2011. Delayed by stormy weather and high seas, the mission began on October 20, 2011. On the afternoon of October 21, Squyres and his crewmates officially became aquanauts, having spent over 24 hours underwater. NEEMO 15 ended early on October 26 due to the approach of Hurricane Rina.

Mars Science Laboratory

Squyres said in an interview that he would not be the principal investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory, launched in 2011, as he did not want to be away from his family again for a long period (as happened during the Mars Exploration Rover Mission).

External links

• Cornell Astronomy Dept.
• Steve Squyres on Twitter
• Scientific American: Father of Spirit and Opportunity With the success of twin rovers on the Red Planet, Steven W. Squyres and his team are showing how to conduct robotic missions—and setting the stage for human exploration
• Mars Exploration Rovers
• Squyres bio at Zip Code Mars page
• Mars Exploration Rovers Mission Update blog
• Squyres receives Benjamin Franklin Medal for Mars Rover leadership; meanwhile, rovers keep proving their mettle, Cornell Chronicle (20 March 2007)
• Video of Steve Squyres discussing the Spirit and Opportunity missions
• Arizona State University presents Shoemaker Award to NASA's MER chief scientist
• Steve Squyres talks about space exploration with Stephen Colbert on June 7, 2006.
• Dr. Steven Squyres speaks at National Portrait Gallery about his role in launching unmanned missions to Mars