Whitman alumnus is chief engineer for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program

Rob Manning ’80 says Whitman helped him realize his dreams.

His childhood dream of becoming a space engineer is still coming true. Rob Manning ’80, chief engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, is quick to credit Whitman with helping him develop the self-discipline and study skills that put him where he is today — building the space probes he read and dreamed about as a child.

Manning spent his childhood living a “Huckleberry Finn existence” in rural northwestern Washington.

“I didn’t believe that I could really become an engineer until I got to Whitman,” says Manning. But the possibility of completing the Whitman- Caltech 3-2 program (which enabled him to earn a bachelor of arts degree from Whitman and a bachelor of science degree from Caltech in five years) inspired him. That, and fear, he says.

“I literally lived in the college library under a portrait of the great Indian Chief Joseph. He was very stern and seemed to encourage me not to lose sight of my goals. I didn’t.”

The rest is history. In 1981 (while still a student at Caltech), Manning was offered a part-time position as an electronics draftsman for the Galileo mission at JPL. He worked on NASA spacecraft computer systems until the Mars Path-finder project took over his life in 1993. There he served as chief engineer and also led the Entry, Descent and Landing team.

Pathfinder and little Sojourner Rover successfully bounced into Mars history on July 4, 1997. Later Manning led the development of the Mars Sample Return Lander until the failure of two Mars probes in 1999 indefinitely postponed the development of Mars Sample Return.

In an attempt to regain NASA’s Mars exploration stature, Manning and a team at JPL conceived and proposed the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission based on the Mars Pathfinder design in April 2000. Rob became the MER System Engineering Manager and later, Entry, Descent and Landing Manager.

He supervised his second and third hair-raising robotic Mars landings when Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed successfully in January of 2004. Since then, Manning has been chief engineer for NASA’s robotic Mars Exploration Program at JPL.

In 2004, Rob was named by Space-News as “one of 100 people who made a difference in civil, commercial and military space since 1989.”

“I came to Whitman from a small farm town where academics, science and engineering seemed the furthest thing in the world. I was very nervous.

“The approachability, the enthusiasm and the extraordinary quality of the faculty surprised me. The Whitman community welcomed me into a world I had only dared to dream to be part of.

“Almost unbelievably after a quarter century, I have found myself a solid fixture in the world of robotics and space exploration. My comfort to ask questions, to express enthusiasm and wonder at our natural world as well as the never-ending depth of human creativity comes squarely from the examples the Whitman community laid before me.

“Whitman is an amazing place, and I am proud to have experienced it.”