Several members of JPL Robotics are recipients of 2018 NASA Honor Awards:
Jeffrey Biesiadecki – Exceptional Public Achievement Award
For exceptional achievement in the development of a flight software algorithm enabling traction control capability on MSL in response to the wheel wear anomaly.
Mars Helicopter Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Balaram, Melko, Zhu, Sirota, Karras, Mier-Hicks, Carlton, Altenbuchner, Tzanetos, Brown, Merewether, Matthies, Brockers, Delaune, Kubiak.
For exceptional accomplishment in demonstrating feasibility of helicopter flight in the extremely thin atmosphere at Mars.
Mars 2020 Mission Performance Model Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Ono
For exceptional achievement in the development of innovative simulation techniques that greatly enhance NASAs exploration capabilities for Mars 2020 and future missions.
MSL Uplink Improvement Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Maimone, Verma, Wiltsie
For exceptional achievement in reducing operations duration, increasing science return, and recovering from anomalies for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.
MSL VSTB Support and Upgrade Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Arutyunov
For outstanding achievement supporting and improving the MSL VSTB in parallel with high priority testing support, anomaly investigations and hardware re-configurations.
InSight SEIS Delivery Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Sunday
For efforts to implement design modifications to the InSight SEIS instrument which improved reliability and performance.
InSight SEIS EC Design and Implementation Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Sunday
For the design, building and test of the evacuated container for the SEIS instrument to support the InSight Project.
COBALT Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Koehler, Bergh, Kourchians, Cheng.
For development and flight demonstration of innovative technologies that provide NASA with breakthrough precision-landing capabilities for future missions.
Next-Generation RTG Team – Group Achievement Award
Robotics Members: Nayar
For recommending groundbreaking modular next-generation radioisotope thermoelectric generator designs to enable future NASA missions.