DSU researchers ready to collaborate with NASA after rover lands on Mars

Delaware State University took part in NASA’s celebration of the successful landing of the Mars Curiosity land rover on the Red Planet at 1:32 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday given its collaboration in the historic mission.

It was the end of a 36-week space flight that began with NASA’s launch of its most advanced rover from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Nov. 25. Now, DSU researchers can do their small part for this big mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars Science Laboratory.

Delaware State University Vice President of Research Dr. Noureddine Melikechi, founder of DSU’s Applied Optics Center, and his students are collaborating with NASA to help analyze the data that will be collected by the Mars land rover.

“This is really a wonderful day,” said Melikechi, who stayed up to watch news of the landing.  “The Rover has landed safely. It has landed on schedule. It has landed where it’s supposed to land. You can’t do better than that.

“In my view, this is an historic moment for humanity,” he said. “This is an historic moment for the United States for many  reasons. For the first time, we as human beings can and will be able to study the planet Mars like we never have before.”

The Curiosity land rover will laser blast the rocky terrain of Mars and break it down into plasma that emits light, Melikechi said. The data collected from that process would then be beamed back to Earth.

Melikechi and DSU Ph.D. candidates Alissa Mezzacappa and Angela Lutberg will then help NASA investigate and analyze that data in the Mars Chamber that Mezzacappa built in DSU’s Mishoe Science Center. They will use the tools of physics, chemistry and science to search for the building blocks of life – namely water, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, et cetera, Melikechi said.

Mezzacappa, a Vassar College product, had been involved with DSU’s optics program for three years. She built the Mars chamber on campus that mimics the conditions that would be encountered on Mars.

Lutberg, who earned her bachelor’s degree in math and physics from Syracuse, said DSU’s participation in the Mars mission attracted her to DSU for her graduate work.

DSU Provost Dr. Thompson said the Mars project underscored the university’s mission to conduct research that improves the lives of people in Delaware, the United States and the entire Earth.

State Sen. Brian Bushweller (D-Dover) and Dover Mayor Carleton Carey Sr. both said this mission was one of the biggest in the history of America’s space program.

“Delaware State has given us something we can be proud of,” Bushweller said.

Indeed, Melikechi believes this groundbreaking, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy technique on Mars will eventually contribute to cancer research.

Melikechi called the landing of the Curiosity rover in Mars humbling. Things did not always go smoothly during the eight and a half month trip to the Red Planet, but those problems were solved, he said.

“One of the instruments on board will examine radiation on Mars. Is the radiation such that life cannot exist? Or is radiation there such that maybe we can design something so that human beings can go there one day?”