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About

Louise Jandura is a pioneering aerospace engineer whose career has been defined by her transformative contributions to Mars surface exploration and robotic sampling systems. Her most celebrated work centers on the development of sophisticated sample acquisition and handling technologies for NASA's flagship Mars missions, most notably the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Jandura played a central role in designing the Sample Acquisition, Sample Processing, and Handling subsystem aboard the Curiosity rover, an intricate robotic system enabling the drilling, sieving, and delivery of Martian rock and regolith to onboard instruments. Her work on the MSL mission has garnered over 800 citations, reflecting its foundational importance to the broader planetary science community. She further advanced this legacy through her contributions to the Sampling and Caching Subsystem for Perseverance, supporting humanity's first systematic effort to collect and cache Martian samples for potential Earth return. Beyond hardware design, Jandura addressed critical operational challenges, including maintaining organic cleanliness across the sample transfer chain and protecting rovers from hazardous slip and settling during sampling activities. Her engineering innovations have been essential to unlocking Mars's habitability secrets and continue to shape the future of planetary exploration.