Exploring the Red Planet with Ashwin Vasavada

Meet Ashwin, he’s a Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. What does a project scientist do? They conceive, design, build, test, and fly robotic spacecraft that explore the Earth, the solar system and beyond. Ashwin is the Curiosity Rover’s Project Scientist. The rover has been ascending the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that was once laced with lakes and streams that would have provided a rich environment for microbial life. What’s Curiosity up to? How are we exploring the red planet? Was there life on Mars?