Meet the Expert: Keri Bean, systems engineer

credit: Dutch Slager

Keri Bean is a senior systems engineer at Sierra Space. I am currently a member of the Dream Chaser flight operations spacecraft systems team. She was the deputy lead Rover Planner (aka Mars rover driver and robotic arm operator) on the Curiosity rover and  a Helicopter Integration Engineer for the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter. She was also one of the Mars rover Opportunity’s final engineers. She has also worked on the Spirit Mars rover, Phoenix Mars lander, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the asteroid missions Dawn, NEAScout, and Psyche. She got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Texas A&M University in meteorology, with her focus on studying the weather on Mars. used to be a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she worked in operations for a variety of spacecraft.

The Ingenuity team attaches a piece to the flight model in early 2019. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Want to learn more about the Ingenuity Helicopter? Check out this NASA website

****************************************************************************************************************************

Challenge: Watch videos of NASA’s Ingenuity and Perserverance operating on Mars.

We LOVE hearing from you!! If you liked this episode, leave a comment below OR share with us on our Twitter , Instagram or Facebook page.

*****************************************************************************************************************************