Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2023) Plenary SPeaker

Matt Wallace

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Project Manager

Deputy Project Manager

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Matt Wallace was the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Project Manager and Deputy Project Manager. He initiated the concept work for the mission, and led the development and implementation team. The spacecraft and Perseverance rover launched in July of 2020 and landed in February 2021, beginning its surface mission of in-situ science and technology experiments, and collecting samples for return to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance is the fifth Mars rover on which Matt has worked. He began as a power systems engineer on the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner vehicle, led the assembly and test team for the twin Spirit and Opportunity missions, which landed in 2004, and held the Flight System Manager position on the 2012 Curiosity mission. He has worked on other programmatic and planetary missions capacities at JPL, and as a program manager for Earth-observing satellites in the aerospace industry. Matt graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland with a B.S. in systems engineering, and received an M.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech. He served in the US Navy fast attack submarine fleet.