Killian Walsh | Staff Reporter
Posted March 25, 2014; 10:30 a.m.
With the spring semester in full swing, the Lindenwood speaker series’s next speaker comes tonight. Adam Steltzner, lead NASA engineer for the Mars rover, Curiosity, makes his way to Lindenwood.
Steltzner began his career back in 1990 when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. He then went on to get a Master of Science degree in applied mechanics and a PhD in engineering mechanics.
Steltzner is currently employed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he has worked for about ten years designing, testing and building the sky crane landing system for the Curiosity rover. He led the team that landed Curiosity on Mars in August of 2012.
Today, Steltzner and his crew are in charge of flying the systems that, at 50 miles above Mars, will slow the new rover from a speed of nearly 15,000 miles per hour and deliver it safely to the planet’s surface.
Among his other accomplishments, Steltzner has also received Smithsonian magazine’
His speech tonight will immerse the audience in the challenges and rewards of his job. The event begins at 7 p.m. in the J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts Bezemes Family Theater. Tickets are required but can be picked up in the box office. For more information contact 636-949-4433 or [email protected].
