Steve Squyres
Encyclopedia
Steven W. Squyres 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
.
in southern New Jersey.
Squyres attended Gateway Regional High School in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey
. He received his B.S.
in Geology
in 1978, his Ph.D.
from Cornell in 1981 (where he was a student of Carl Sagan
), 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 http://www.fi.edu/winners/2007/squyres_steven.faw?winner_id=4406 by the Franklin Institute
. He is also a member of the college fraternity
Tau Kappa Epsilon
(TKE).
'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.
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
.
, 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).
Goldwin Smith
Goldwin Smith was a British-Canadian historian and journalist.- Early years :He was born at Reading, Berkshire. He was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and after a brilliant undergraduate career he was elected to a fellowship at University College, Oxford...
Professor of Astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator
Principal investigator
A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....
of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER). He is the recipient of the 2004 Carl Sagan Memorial Award
Carl Sagan Memorial Award
The Carl Sagan Memorial Award is an award presented jointly by the American Astronautical Society and The Planetary Society to an individual or group "who has demonstrated leadership in research or policies advancing exploration of the Cosmos." The annual award, first presented in 1997, was created...
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
Tim Squyres
Tim Squyres is an American film editor with about 30 film credits. Squyres has had an extended collaboration with the Taiwanese director Ang Lee, having edited all but one of Lee's feature films....
.
Education
Squyres was raised in the town of WenonahWenonah, New Jersey
Wenonah is a Borough in Gloucester County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2000 United States Census, the borough population was 2,317. It is located approximately 10 miles south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
in southern New Jersey.
Squyres attended Gateway Regional High School in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey
Woodbury Heights, New Jersey
Woodbury Heights is a Borough located in Gloucester County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2000 census, the borough had a total population of 2,988....
. He received his B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
in 1978, his Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
from Cornell in 1981 (where he was a student of Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
), and then spent five years as a postdoctoral associate and research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
NASA Ames Research Center
The Ames Research Center , is one of the United States of America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration 10 major field centers.The centre is located in Moffett Field in California's Silicon Valley, near the high-tech companies, entrepreneurial ventures, universities, and other...
before returning to Cornell as a faculty member. He received the H. C. Urey Prize
H. C. Urey Prize
The Harold C. Urey Prize is awarded annually by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. The prize recognizes outstanding achievement in planetary science by a young astronomer. The prize is named after Harold C. Urey....
from the Planetary Division of the American Astronomical Society
American Astronomical Society
The American Astronomical Society is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC...
in 1987. In 2007, he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science http://www.fi.edu/winners/2007/squyres_steven.faw?winner_id=4406 by the Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
. He is also a member of the college fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
Tau Kappa Epsilon
Tau Kappa Epsilon
Tau Kappa Epsilon is a college fraternity founded on January 10, 1899 at Illinois Wesleyan University with chapters in the United States, and Canada, and affiliation with a German fraternity system known as the Corps of the Weinheimer Senioren Convent...
(TKE).
NASA
Squyres has participated in many of NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's planetary exploration missions. From 1978 to 1981 he was an associate of the Voyager
Voyager program
The Voyager program is a U.S program that launched two unmanned space missions, scientific probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s...
mission to Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
and Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
, participating in analysis of imaging data. He subsequently worked as a radar investigator on the Magellan
Magellan probe
The Magellan spacecraft, also referred to as the Venus Radar Mapper, was a 1,035-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989, to map the surface of Venus using Synthetic Aperture Radar and measure the planetary gravity...
mission to Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
, and with the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission. Along with his work as principal investigator on the MER
Mars Exploration Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars...
(Mars Exploration Rovers), he is also a co-investigator on the 2003 Mars Express
Mars Express
Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency . The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was...
and 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and Exploration of Mars from orbit...
missions, a member of the Gamma-Ray
Gamma ray
Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...
Spectrometer
Spectrometer
A spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials. The variable measured is most often the light's intensity but could also, for instance, be the polarization...
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
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Space Science Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC). In November 2011, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
Charles Frank "Charlie" Bolden, Jr. is the current Administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps major general, and former NASA astronaut....
named Squyres chairman of the NAC, succeeding Dr. Kenneth Ford
Kenneth M. Ford
Ken Ford is founder and director of the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition .Kenneth Ford is Founder and CEO of the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition — a not-for-profit research institute located in Pensacola, Florida...
, the founder and director of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.
ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
featured Squyres as its Person of the Week for January 9, 2004, and World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...
said he "has gotten us all excited." Squyres was also given the 2005 Wired Rave Award for science by Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
for overseeing the creation of Spirit
Spirit rover
Spirit, MER-A , is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity , landed on the other side of the planet...
and Opportunity
Opportunity rover
Opportunity, MER-B , is a robotic rover on the planet Mars, active since 2004. It is the remaining rover in NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission...
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
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
documentary film Roving Mars
Roving Mars
Roving Mars is an IMAX documentary film about the development, launch, and operation of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The film uses few actual photographs from Mars, opting to use computer generated animation based on the photographs and data from the rovers and other Mars...
was made from the book.
Squyres was interviewed on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
: "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.
A portrait of Squyres by Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon was on view in National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
'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
Aquanaut
An Aquanaut is any individual who remains underwater, exposed to the ambient pressure, long enough to come into equilibrium with his or her breathing media. Usually this is done in an underwater habitat on the seafloor for a period equal to or greater than 24 continuous hours without returning to...
aboard the Aquarius
Aquarius (laboratory)
The NOAA Aquarius Reef Base is an underwater habitat located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, adjacent to Conch Reef. It is one of the few underwater research facilities in the world dedicated to science...
underwater laboratory
Underwater habitat
Underwater habitats are underwater structures in which people can live for extended periods and carry out most of the basic human functions of a 24-hour day, such as working, resting, eating, attending to personal hygiene, and sleeping...
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
Hurricane Rina
Hurricane Rina was the eighteenth tropical cyclone, seventeenth named storm, and sixth hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. Rina developed from a low-pressure area in the western Caribbean Sea on October 23. The depression quickly intensified, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Rina...
.
Mars Science Laboratory
Squyres said in an interview that he would not be the principal investigator for the Mars Science LaboratoryMars Science Laboratory
The Mars Science Laboratory is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission with the aim to land and operate a rover named Curiosity on the surface of Mars. The MSL was launched November 26, 2011, at 10:02 EST and is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater between August 6 and 20, 2012...
, 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.
- 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