Nagin Cox ("Details of Mars Mission Operations & General Robotic Spacecraft Operations", Main Tent, Friday 1:30 p.m.; "Mars 2003 Rover Mission - Hitting the Road on Mars", Main Tent, Saturday 8:00 p.m.) graduated from Cornell University in 1986 with a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, and a B.A. in Psychology, and was commissioned as an officer in the US Air Force. While in the Air Force she worked as a systems engineer in F-16 aircrew training and, after obtaining her Masters in Space Operations Systems Engineering, as an Orbital Analyst at NORAD/Space Command.

After leaving the Air Force in 1993, she joined JPL as a ground data system engineer. In 1995, she transferred into JPL's Spacecraft Systems Engineering Section and worked as the Deputy Team Chief of the engineering spacecraft flight team for NASA/JPL's Galileo mission to Jupiter. Nagin is currently the Deputy Team Chief of the Spacecraft/Rover Engineering Flight Team on the JPL Mars 2003 Exploration Rover Mission.

How does the vast amount of information returned from other planets really get acquired? On Friday, Nagin will give us a behind-the-scenes look at how operations are conducted for landed and orbiter missions. Bring your questions to this informal question and answer session.

Since the beginning of time, people have been entranced by the night sky and by our nearest planetary neighbour - Mars. From the early missions - Viking, Pathfinder and the more recent missions - Mars has been (and is) a challenging destination. The Mars Exploration Rovers landed on Mars in January 2004, and have begun to unveil many of its mysteries. On Saturday Nagin will share, from her unique perspective, the story of the successful landings and the next steps in the process of making Mars a regular robotic destination.