UCLA mechanical engineering alumna Anais Zarifian ’16 has had an amazing career “win” with the recent Mars Perseverance rover landing.
Zarifian is a NASA system testbed engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and helped test the rover’s mobility systems prior to its launch last July. She worked on everything that has to do with how the rover drives — the actuators that drive and steer the wheels, the sensors on the suspension system, the rover’s computer vision and its autonomous driving behaviors. All of this functionality was tested on Perseverance’s twin rover OPTIMISM, which she helped build in the Mars Yard at JPL.
in the Mars Yard at JPL.
Recounting the experience watching the rover landing remotely on February 18 with some of her colleagues, Zarifian still can’t contain her excitement. “I don’t…
