JPL Director Dr.
Charles Elachi has announced that Naderi
will become JPL's laboratory's Associate
Director for Programs, Project Formulation
and Strategy, effective March 7.
Elachi said, "Firouz
was called on to lead the Mars Program at
JPL five years ago when the program had
experienced some setbacks. He helped
restructure the program and has led it to
some spectacular successes. Now we are
putting to a wider purpose the strength that
Firouz has shown in strategic planning of
the Mars program. In his new role, he will
help position JPL to work with the rest of
NASA in accomplishing the nation's full
vision for space exploration."
In the new position,
besides overseeing JPL's broad existing
programs, Naderi will be in charge of
long-term strategic planning for JPL and
will coordinate advance studies, acquisition
of new missions, and development of projects
early in their life cycle.
The current deputy
manager for Mars exploration, Dr. Fuk K. Li,
will become manager of that program. Peter
C. Theisinger, project manager for the Mars
Science Laboratory mission in development,
will succeed Li as deputy manager of the
Mars Exploration Program. Richard A. Cook,
now Theisinger's deputy, will become project
manager of the Mars Science Laboratory
mission.
Two weeks ago, NASA
honored Naderi with its highest award, the
Distinguished Service Medal, citing his
"distinguished contribution to space science
and exploration."
Naderi joined JPL in
1979 and has held a number of program and
project management positions. For four years
prior to managing the recent successes of
NASA's Mars program, he managed the NASA's
Origins Program, an ambitious plan to search
for other Earths around other suns. Earlier
positions included program manager for space
science flight experiments and project
manager for the NASA Scatterometer, which
monitored winds from Earth orbit. Naderi,
who was born in Shiraz, Iran, and moved to
the United States 40 years ago, holds three
degrees in electrical engineering: a
bachelor's from Iowa State University in
Ames, and a master's and doctorate from the
University of Southern California in Los
Angeles. He lives in Pacific Palisades,
Calif.
Li has been Deputy
Director of the Mars Exploration Directorate
since 2004. JPL coordinates the Mars
Exploration Program for all of NASA, which
currently has two spacecraft studying Mars
from orbit, two rovers active on the surface
and four spacecraft in development.
From 2001 to 2004, Li
was the Deputy Director of the Solar System
Exploration Directorate, and from 1997 to
2001, he managed NASA's New Millennium
Program, which develops and tests new
technologies in space flight for use in
later science missions. Previously, he
managed the Earth Science Program, was
project engineer for the NASA Scatterometer
and was involved in various radar
remote-sensing activities. He earned his
bachelor's and doctorate degrees in physics
from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, before joining JPL in
1979. He lives in Arcadia, Calif.
Theisinger has managed
the Mars Science Laboratory Project since
February 2004. The project is developing a
rover with a science payload more than 10
times as massive as those on the current
Mars Exploration Rovers. The project's
advanced landing techniques will make many
of Mars' most intriguing regions viable
destinations for the first time.
Theisinger managed the
Mars Exploration Rover Project from its
inception in mid-2000 until after the
successful landings and initial surface
operations of the rovers Spirit and
Opportunity. Prior JPL positions included
deputy manager for the Mars Sample Return
Project, mission support and development
manager for the Mars Surveyor Operations
Project and project engineer for the Mars
Global Surveyor spacecraft development
project. He first joined JPL in 1967, the
year he received a bachelor's degree in
physics from the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. He lives in La
Crescenta, Calif.
Cook became deputy
project manager for Mars Science Laboratory
in June 2004 after four months as project
manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers. He
had earlier helped lead the development and
operation of Spirit and Opportunity as
flight systems manager and deputy project
manager. Previously, Cook was flight
operations manager for the Mars Pathfinder
Project, which put a lander and small rover
on Mars in 1997. He joined JPL in 1989 and
worked on the Magellan mission to Venus
prior to Pathfinder. He earned a bachelor's
degree in engineering physics from the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and a
master's in aerospace engineering from the
University of Texas, Austin. He lives in
Santa Clarita, Calif.
