Specialty: Aerospace Engineering
Major Contributions:
Staff Engineer at JPL
Working on efficient collaboration of multiple robots
First woman to drive on Mars
Image Source: NASA/JPL
On January 25, 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover “Opportunity” landed in the equatorial region of the Red Planet. As Opportunity began to explore, it and its twin, Spirit, were controlled by a team of experts on Earth, who turned a map of the rovers’ desired route and instructions for experimentation into computer language that the rovers could understand. One member of this team was Ashley Stroupe, dubbed the “first woman to drive on Mars.” In a 2015 interview, Stroupe stated that a highlight of her career was seeing the tracks that she had helped the rover Spirit make, saying, “I felt like a true explorer.”
The daughter of an aerospace engineer who worked on the Voyager and Gemini projects, Stroupe was always fascinated by space. She initially hoped to be an astronaut, but was unfortunately plagued by motion sickness. Rather than letting this deter her dreams, Stroupe simply changed her focus to building the vehicles for space exploration.
In 2003, Stroupe earned her PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. Her work at the Robotics Institute focused around developing the software that is necessary to power robots and specifically enabling multiple robots to work together as a team. After completing her doctorate, Stroupe joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab initially working on robotics research including multi-robot coordination, steep terrain access, and sampling before moving to full time rover operations.
In addition to her work “driving” the Mars rovers, she uses data from the rovers to identify and evaluate potential landing sites for a manned mission to Mars. Furthering the software work from her graduate studies, Stroupe is developing ways for multi-robot teams to work together in complex environments.
She participated in the Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition, in which teams of biologists, geologists, and engineers come together to practice and prepare for an expedition to Mars on the island of Spitsbergen, about 600 miles from the North Pole.
While Spirit and Opportunity were functional for years beyond their expected life spans, as of 2018 both rovers have stopped sending responses and their missions considered complete. Since that time Stroupe continues her work at JPL, including driving Curiosity, another Mars Rover. She was also featured in the 2022 documentary Good Night Oppy.
Written by Nicole Hutchison
Sources:
Jet Propulsion Lab: Ashley Stroupe
NASA Solar System Exploration: People
Meet the First Woman to Drive on Mars! (NASA: Mars Exploration Rovers)
Exploring Mars on Earth: The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition
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