Many Thanks

Phew! What a great two weeks it has been! I am absolutely thrilled by how much we accomplished during this field test. Not only did we collect a tremendous amount of ground recon data, which I'm sure will greatly improve planning and operations for the upcoming Lunar Electric Rover mission, but we also gained many significant insights into robotic recon and learned many valuable lessons about analog testing at Black Point Lava Flow. I'm looking forward to the many papers and reports that will come in the following weeks...

This field test was truly a team effort and I would like to thank each and every person that helped out. The above image shows the "ground control" team at the Lunar Science Institute on the last day of the field test. Engineers, flight controllers, scientists, interns... they all played critical roles in making everything work so well at NASA Ames.

I would like to thank the two science teams that supported the field test. During the first week, the "West" team (shown here) included Kip Hodges (Arizona State University), Jose Hurtado (University of Texas / El Paso), Marwan Hussein (Optech), Nina Lanza (University of New Mexico), Pascal Lee (Mars Institute), Ann Ollila (University of New Mexico), and Jim Rice (Arizona State University).

During the second week, the "North" science team included Mary Sue Bell (NASA JSC), David Kring (Lunar and Planetary Institute), Rob Stewart (University of Houston), Jeff Tripp (Optech), Mike Wyatt (Brown University), R. Aileen Yingst (Planetary Science Institute), and Kelsey Young (Arizona State University).

I would also like to thank the K10 field team and KSC communications team for their tremendous dedication and hard work at Black Point Lava Flow. In spite of wind, rain, blazing sun, dust, radio interference, and difficult terrain, the people in the field managed to deploy K10 every single day that was needed, and in every location that was asked.

Finally, I would like to especially thank Linda Kobayashi (field team manager) and Estrellina Pacis (NASA Ames team manager) for doing a phenomenal job. These jobs are incredibly stressful and require working on many, many different things at the same time, all the time. Yet, through it all, Linda and Estrellina never complained, never let anything fall through the cracks and always managed to make it look easy.