Dr. Mohamed Abid

Affiliation:  Mars Sample Return SRL Payload Chief Engineer JPL / NASA

            Mars 2020 Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer JPL/NASA

Biography:  Dr. Abid is the Mars Sample Return Payload Chief Engineer. He was the Mars 2020 Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer, M2020 Cruise, Entry, Descent & Landing (CEDL) MSE, and M2020 Anomaly Response Team lead. Prior to that, Dr. Abid was the JPL Mechatronics technical group manager, and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission Chief Engineer.  and Manager of the Mechatronics group at JPL. Before joining 355 and Mars 2020, Dr. Abid was the SMAP Mission Chief Engineer, and Deputy FSSE for SMAP that launched successfully in January 2015.

Prior to SMAP, he was the FSE lead for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission (WISE) that was successfully launched in December, 2009. He was the project System Engineer for the Ocean Surface Topography mission (OSTM) that was successfully launched in June, 2008.

Before joining JPL, Dr. Abid was Co-PI on the FIVE Project as part of space flight experiment, and an Associate Investigator / Test Conductor on the Structure of Flame Ball at Low Lewis number (SOFBALL) experiment which flew on Space Shuttle missions Columbia STS-83 (launched in April 1997), Columbia STS-94 (launched in May 1997) and Columbia STS-107 (launched in January 2003).

Dr. Abid received his Ph.D. from the Dept of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering of the University of Southern California (USC). He is a lecturer at USC, and the author of the textbook "Spacecraft Sensors", a John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2005.. 

https://mars.nasa.gov/people/profile/index.cfm?id=23057

Title : Mars missions: Past, present, and future 

Abstract:  Getting to Mars is not easy. Landing on Mars is hard. Landing Perseverance, the most complex rover ever built, with the precision that it landed is even harder. Collection activities of high scientific value of Martian rock and soil samples are ongoing. We will go over the various steps that led us to this point, some of the challenges that we overcame, and what would it take to bring back safely the samples to earth. On Earth, detailed compositional analyses would be performed to understand samples' geological histories and look for signs of past life.