Armenian News - sent by A Topalian

To Infinity and Beyond: Armenians in the Mars Rover Curiosity Project

<http://asbarez.com/App/Asbarez/eng/2012/08/MSL_Armenians_1.jpg>  
From l to r: Toorian, Gharakhanian, Sarkissian, Ohanian, Hartounian,
Khanoyan, Gorjian, Zadourian, Aintablian, Demirjian, and Karapetian
BY SHANTAL DER BOGHOSIAN
From The Armenian Weekly <http://armenianweekly.com> 
Since the beginning of time, Space has been a source of mystery for man-a
mystery they sought to decipher. Thanks to the scientific curiosity of
Ptolemy, Galileo Galilee, and Isaac Newton, man has discovered numerous
planets, landed on the Moon, and has even captured ancient images of space
with the Hubble telescope that shine light on the Big Bang. Scientists know
that our planet Earth has the perfect components for life, but as Earth
begins to feel the effects of global warming and human overpopulation, it is
only natural that scientists start looking to Space for answers-
particularly from our neighbor, Mars.
August 5, 2012 at 10:31p.m. PDT, the Mars Rover Curiosity successfully
descended on parachute and landed upright on Martian soil. Curiosity is part
of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term robotic exploration of the
red planet so close to our own home! Curiosity was designed to assess Mars's
habitability, and to see if it ever had the proper environment to support
small life-forms called microbes. The rover carries the largest, most
advanced suite of instruments ever sent to Mars and will analyze samples
scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. Any planet's geology record is
essentially stored in rocks and soil- particularly in the formation,
chemical composition and structure. Curiosity has an on-board laboratory and
it will study rocks and soil in order to detect any chemical building blocks
of life in order to piece together Mars's past.
One of the most impressive features is Curiosity's power source. The rover
carries a radioisotope system that generates electricity from the heat of
Plutonium's radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is the process by which an
atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing
particles. In turn, an ion is created when an atom gains or loses a charged
particle, such as an electron or a proton. This power source is strong
enough to give Curiosity a life-span of one Martian year, or 687 Earth Days,
and also gives Curiosity more operational flexibility and greater mobility
than any previous Mars mission.
According to JPL, Curiosity represents a huge step in Mars surface science
and exploration because it demonstrates the ability to land a very large and
heavy rover to the surface of Mars, as well as demonstrating the ability to
land more precisely in the calculated landing circle. This is a large feat!
Not only am I proud as a scientist, but I'm also proud to know that there
were fourteen Armenians who collaborated in this project's success! Arbi
Karapetian, a group supervisor at JPL, joined the project during the design
and implementation phase. He was a Test Conductor during Assembly, Testing
and launch. When asked how he felt about the project's success, Arbi said
"As an engineer you're aware of statistical analysis and reliability. Every
engineer understands that you do the best you can, but there's always room
for failure. This project was exponentially more complicated than any
previous project because of the advances in engineering. The complexity was
so high that you could no longer have one engineer, the work had to be
spread amongst many engineers, which allowed more room for error." Arbi was
very proud of the team's accomplishment, and the success was the greatest
reward for all the long, arduous hours they put into the project. "If you
love doing what you do, then you'll never work a day in your life. There are
very long hours which are taxing on everything you do. If this is really
your passion, then all of that lines itself up, and it's not hard to get
motivated to do what it takes."
The following Armenians made significant contributions to the success of the
MSL (Mars Science laboratory) Project: Avo Demirjian, Vache Vorperian,
Alfred Khashaki, Felix Sarkissian and Hrair Aintablian in the field of
Electronics; Garen Khanoyan and Richard Ohanian on the Landing Radar System;
Serjik Zadourian and Vazrik Kharakhanian in Assembly Test and Launch;
Gayaneh Kazarians in Biology; Hanry Hartounian in Flight Software; Armen
Toorian in Mechanisms and Testbeds; and Zareh Gorjian in Computer Animation.
***