Planetary Sciences Research Option
Missions & Instrumentation
Caltech faculty, postdocs, and students are heavily involved in numerous operating and upcoming planetary missions:
Juno
Dave Stevenson and Andy Ingersoll are members of the science team.
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
John Grotzinger, Bethany Ehlmann, Ed Stolper, Ken Farley, Woody Fischer, and are all part of the science team.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Bethany Ehlmann is a Deputy PI of the CRISM imaging spectrometer team for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Mars 2020
Ken Farley is project scientist for Mars-2020; Bethany Ehlmann, John Grotzinger, and Woody Fischer are co-investigators on the science team.
Exo-Mars rover
Exo-Mars rover: Bethany Ehlmann is a collaborator on the science team of the Ma_MISS instrument.
Lunar Trailblazer
Bethany Ehlmann is Principal Investigator and the mission will involve the Bruce Murray Laboratory and Caltech's IPAC.
EMIT
Bethany Ehlmann is a member of the science team.
Faculty also work to propose new missions and instruments. Bethany Ehlmann works with colleagues at JPL and APL on spectrometers and imaging spectrometer systems for Ocean Worlds, Mars, Venus, Moon and asteroid missions. Katherine de Kleer has been working on a mission concept to Io. In Geophysics, Jennifer Jackson has been leading a team to pioneer balloon-based seismology of Venus, and Zhongwhen Zhan has been leading an effort to due planetary seismology with fiber optics. In addition, our ESE and Geophysics colleagues are involved in dozens of space-based Earth-observing missions.