LOS ANGELES — A Filipino-American engineer played an important role in the successful landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars on Thursday, Feb. 18.
The Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. proudly announced that Gregorio Villar III, who grew up in Baguio City was an integral part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 2020 mission as the Entry Descent Landing (EDL) Systems Engineer of Mars 2020 Mission.
The 33-year-old Villar is operations systems engineer in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). A brief profile in the NASA Mars project website said Villar spent 7-1/2 years building and testing a system that will land a car-sized rover on Mars.
Villar is also head verification and validation engineer for the entry, descent and landing phase. Before the launch, Villar directed a Mars parachute test campaign at the world’s largest wind tunnel. He also led a council of atmospheric scientists, from institutions around the world, to characterize the Martian atmosphere.
Villar, however, is not the only Filipino in the Perseverance team that consists of top scientists and engineers, he said in an interview with Teleradyo on Friday, Feb. 19.
Villar finished high school at the Saint Louis University – Laboratory High School in Baguio City, Philippines. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona and his Masters Degree in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
Both Villar’s parents are Filipino, and though he was born in the U.S., he spent some of his teen years being raised in Baguio, he said in the interview. In high school at Saint Louis University in Baguio, he already showed a high aptitude for math and science, joining competitions to represent his school. He credits his high school education for his foundation in physics and math.
In the NASA profile, Villar said his interest for space and science was inspired by watching movies like “Contact,” “Apollo 13,” “Armageddon,” and “Independence Day.” He said he had always wanted to be an astronaut even when he was in elementary school.
“I was awarded a NASA scholarship in my junior year of college, which came with an internship at a NASA center of my choice. I started interning at JPL in 2010 and got hired full-time in 2012,” he said.
Asked what was his favorite thing about his work, he said: “I have a whole spreadsheet of things I love about working at JPL, but the number one thing are the people I work with.”
He considers leading a parachute test campaign in the world’s largest wind tunnel as the most extraordinary experience he has had so far working for NASA. He said the most exciting about his work on Mars is “the thought of going there myself.”
Villar loves to travel, climb, play chess, do magic, listen to music, and play poker.
Asked what advice he would give to students interested in a similar career, Villar said, “Although it is a cliche, it is very important to pursue something you love. I have worked at JPL for over 12 years, and there is rarely a day that I feel like I am going to “work.”
Getting the rover to land after 203 days in space was nerve-racking, he recalled. Villar said that the entry, descent and landing is called the “7 minutes of terror.”
After the rover hit the atmosphere of Mars, it slowed down due to friction, and the team had to release a large parachute called the supersonic parachute which was ejected faster than the speed of sound.
”After that, we separate the heat shield that covers the spacecraft. The Rover comes down on rockets; it has its own jet pack,” he explained. “The jet pack lowers the Rover, it separates the Rover on its cables. It safely touches the ground, then the jet pack flies away.”
Perseverance, a rover the size of an SUV, touched down on Martian soil from a hovering landing craft using a Sky Crane. It entered the atmosphere at about Mach 28 (21,000 mph) before slowing down to Mach 10 (7,600 mph) while experiencing over 10x of Earth’s gravity.
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is to search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
The rover will be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
