Millions of people around the world are following the progress of NASA’s Curiosity rover since it landed on Mars last week. Years of hard work and cooperation were needed to ensure that the roving laboratory, the size of a compact car, would survive undamaged both the 566 million kilometre journey to the Red Planet and the landing. Among the hundreds of NASA employees still glowing with success are Dutch navigator Gerhard Kruizinga and his Moroccan colleague, Kamal Oudghiri.

“Lots of people thought we were nuts” says Oudghiri. “They said our new methods wouldn’t work. That makes the success after years of work even sweeter”. The Moroccan telecommunications engineer leads the Radio Science team of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that co-ordinated the landing. Gerhard Kruizinga was one of the navigators responsible for guiding the Curiosity to the right spot at the end of its epic journey.

Mars-scape in the sand pit
Kruizinga was born into a Dutch farming family. His parents realised early on that he wasn’t going to be following in their footsteps, says Kruizinga. “From the age of about six I was more interested in the Moon landing than any adventure book. I’d build Mars landscapes in my sand pit, complete with a landing craft”. When he was ten, he followed the coverage of the Viking mission to Mars. “That’s when I first heard of the JPL, and I’ve been working towards this moment ever since.”

Kamal Oudghiri also set his sights on NASA early on. “There have been many times when I almost despaired,” he says. “You have to get good results in order to go further with your study, but good schools are expensive in Morocco. I come from an ordinary middle-class family, so I went to an ordinary state school”. Then in 1986 he got the chance to study in the United States, and that’s when he discovered that he lacked practical knowledge. “In America, engineering students are encouraged to be practical early on, whereas the approach is much more theoretical in Morocco. That did mean though that I was better at the theory than my fellow students.

Oudghiri hopes it will become easier for young Moroccans to study science. He and fellow experts have set up the Grove of Hope Foundation to share their knowledge with youngsters in Morocco, the US and elsewhere.

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RNW