Arcadian Edward Wong recently received high honors from NASA and Space Flight Mechanics for his critical work on the guidance system that guided the Mars rover Curiosity to its highly successful renedvous with the Red Planet. His awards were presented during the 24th AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico in late January.
Edward Wong with actual size mock-up of Curiosity
Work by Wong and his team was recognized as NASA Software of the Year for 2013 for NTR no. 44630_49100: “Mars Science Laboratory Flight Software” and he was awarded NASA’s Space Act Award for the Development of a significant scientific or technical contribution entitled Mars Science Laboratory Flight Software NPO-CC-006, that has been determined to be of value in the conduct of an aeronautical or space activity of NASA.
The presentation was made in recognition of his contribution to the National Space Program and to the mission of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (where Wong works) by the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board.
In addition, his technical paper, AAS 13-328, “The Development of the MSL Guidance, Navigation and Control System for Entry, Descent, and Landing,” was named the best paper at the AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, where he received a Certificate of Merit recognizing technical and scientific excellence at the conference organized by the AAS Space Flight Mechanics Committee and the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee.
By Scott Hettrick