Steve Collins (engineer)
Steve Collins is an American physicist and engineer best known for his role in NASA Mars exploration program.
Education and early-life
[edit]Collins earned degrees in physics and theater arts from the University of California Santa Cruz[1] He is the son of Emmy winning cinematographer Bob Collins best known for his work on Superman and Miami Vice.[citation needed]
Career
[edit]Collins worked in the motion picture industry for a few years after graduation before being hired by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has worked on the Psyche,[2] Deep Impact[3] and Deep Space One missions on attitude, guidance and control. He worked as team lead on the Mars Exploration Program.[4] Collins served as senior guidance and control engineer on the Mars Science Laboratory mission.[5] Collins long hair along with Bobak Ferdowsi's mohawk, also drew attention as a new face of NASA.[5]
Outside of NASA, Collins acts in community theater including a part in a musical Star Trek parody presented by the Caltech theater arts department.[6] He also plays for JPL's employee soccer team, The Cosmics, and races autocross.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Townsend, Peggy. "Alumni Profile / Steve Collins: A 'real' rocket man". UC Santa Cruz News. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
- ^ Hart, William; Brown, G. Mark; Collins, Steven M.; De Soria-Santacruz Pich, Maria; Fieseler, Paul; Goebel, Dan; Marsh, Danielle; Oh, David Y.; Snyder, Steve; Warner, Noah; Whiffen, Gregory (March 2018). "Overview of the spacecraft design for the Psyche mission concept". 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference. pp. 1–20. doi:10.1109/AERO.2018.8396444. ISBN 978-1-5386-2014-4. S2CID 49536224.
- ^ "Deep Impact: Mission: Biographies: Steve Collins". deepimpact.umd.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
- ^ "Steve Collins | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
- ^ a b Kolawole, Emi (August 10, 2012). "NASA Curiosity crew members are hanging out with us today". Washington Post.
- ^ "Caltech, JPL join forces for 'Star Trek' musical parody". Los Angeles Times. 2016-03-28. Retrieved 2020-08-07.