AMA had a great challenge as it had to closely monitor ‘Curiosity Rover’ and it also computer-stimulated the complete dynamics of the spacecraft after it enters the Martian atmosphere. This involved a great challenge as it included accurately modeling the Martian atmosphere. It also had to coordinate between various parts of the spaceship such as bridles, heat shield and parachute.

“We predict what the spacecraft is going to do during the actual mission; We were also involved in the spacecraft instrumentation called MEDLI (Mars EDL Instrumentation), which will measure aero thermal environments, vehicle orientation and atmospheric density. We are eagerly awaiting data from Curiosity to do postflight analysis which will be useful for future manned missions" says Kumar as reported by Times of India.

"The mission cost upward of $2.1 billion. Moreover, Curiosity was heavy (about 1 ton) and the previous methods of airbag deployment at landing as used for Pathfinder wouldn't work here. A new, never before-attempted idea — Sky Crane — was used for this mission where instead of rolling the rover off an elevated lander, it was attached to the bottom of the rocket-powered descent stage, and lowered directly to the surface" reports TOI as stated by Kumar.

Renjith Kumar hails from Thiruvananthapuram; he studied in Loyola College and got a gold medal for B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering and then went to Virginia Institute of Technology to pursue an MS and a Ph D in aerospace engineering.