Adventurers’ Club member and rocket scientist/engineer Nagin Cox takes us inside the robotic exploration of Mars, from the first rovers to Curiosity and the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission. Drawing on decades of experience operating spacecraft at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Nagin shares what it is like to work on Mars time, drive a rover on another world, collect samples for future return to Earth, and continually push the capabilities of our robotic explorers. She also looks ahead to a future in which robots and humans work together to carry exploration farther into the Solar System.
Nagin Cox is a Mission Lead on NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she has held leadership roles on numerous interplanetary robotic missions. A former U.S. Air Force Space Operations Officer at NORAD/U.S. Space Command, she holds engineering and psychology degrees from Cornell University. She is a recipient of three NASA Exceptional Service and Achievement medals, and the namesake of Asteroid 14061 (Nagincox). She serves on advisory councils for Human Rights watch, The Planetary Society, and Space for Humanity, and is a Fellow of The Explorers Club, a board member of the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles, and an adjunct Professor of Practice at the Air Force Institute of Technology.