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Fernando Abilleira

Fernando has given technical support to numerous missions and studies that include the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, Mars Science Orbiter, Mars Netlanders, Mars Sample Return, future manned missions to Mars and other advanced studies. In 2007 he entered to form part of the team of the Mission Design and Navigation Team for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project, which was tremendously successful in putting the rover Curiosity on Mars on 6 August 2012. Curiosity is situated inside a crater known as Gale, and it currently assessing whether at any time that region offered the conditions necessary for the development of microbial life. Fernando also directed the work of the preliminary studies on the mission designs of the NASA and ESA joint missions that were planned to be launched in 2016 and 2018.

He is currently Manager of the Mission Design and Navigation of the next Martian lander known as InSight which will be launched to Mars in 2016. Fernando has published various technical documents in the areas of Astrodynamics, Orbital Mechanics, and trajectory optimization.

He lives in Simi Valley, California, with his wife Sarah and children Owen, Ethan and Logan.

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Has participated in

Fernando Abilleira, Jacinto Antón, Lara Saiz

Martian Time-Slip - talk