Over the moon: HTHS grad studies Mars, Jupiter’s moon for upcoming NASA missions

This year marks 50 years since a man-made object first successfully soft-landed on another planet or moon. Now a Hewitt-Trussville graduate is tasked with helping two of the next landing projects in U.S. space history.

David Parsons, a 2002 HTHS graduate and 2007 Auburn University graduate, relocated to Pasadena, California, last June to work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Caltech. He spent his first six months working on the Mars 2020 project. Now, he begins his new role- — lead dynamics environment engineer for the Europa mission — the space industry’s first trip to investigate Jupiter’s icy moon in detail.

“It is definitely one of the most motivating and exciting aspects of the job,” Parsons said. “It doesn’t always register with me during the day-to-day that the projects I am working on now will one day be on Mars or will be orbiting another planet or moon. It’s good to remind myself of the bigger picture every now and then.”

PATH TO PASADENA

Parsons didn’t exactly dream of working in the space industry or becoming an engineer. He did have a big interest in space from ages six to eight, but Parsons said becoming an engineer was random.

Upon arriving at Auburn, he declared his major early in mechanical engineering and thought grad school and a job in the biomedical field was his future. But an internship opportunity at JPL in 2006 reintroduced him to space. While Parsons didn’t get the internship, he only applied for one job out of college: the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, where he worked as a structural dynamics analyst from June 2007 to June 2015.

When he married Elizabeth Sassler in February 2014, the couple realized a change of location could provide more opportunities for Sassler’s career, using her Ph.D. in public administration to teach and perform research, as well as expanding Parsons’ career path.

Parsons began putting out feelers to colleagues for engineering jobs in larger cities. At the time, it looked like he might have to leave NASA to do so, but when JPL was awarded contracts for two major projects, it opened the door in Pasadena.

“It was kind of a win-win-win for us,” Parsons said. “I was excited to get the opportunity to come out here and work here. There are many paths to success. In my case, I wasn’t able to get out here initially, but I was able to get on at Marshall and build up an expertise that was needed at JPL.”

His analysis expertise in structural vibrations and pyroshock, as well as presentations at conferences and workshops, is what attracted his new boss, Dr. Ali Kolaini, to hire him.

It was Kolaini, a principal engineer at JPL and supervisor for the Dynamics Environment Group, who placed Parsons in a leadership role for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa in January 2016.

“He doesn’t shy away from stepping into new territories and getting involved into a unique thing nobody has done,” Kolaini said. “Some engineers are reluctant to get into new things. I find David to be one who dives in and works hard on things he hasn’t done before.”

MARS 2020

Parsons spent his first six months at JPL working on Mars 2020, the next step toward a manned mission to Mars, which NASA calls “a roving laboratory that will study the planet as never before.”

An expert in subject matter, Parsons’ primary job is to define environments in which the mission will take place.

For Mars 2020, his focus is a drill that will be located on a robotic arm on the front left side of the rover. On this drill are two scientific instruments. One is PIXL, which is designed to look at small scale samples of Mars’ surface to gather information about chemical elements present. The other is SHERLOC, which will use an ultraviolet laser which can help “identify certain minerals, including ones formed from evaporation of salty water, and organic compounds,” according to NASA.

“We have several decades of data about launch vehicles, but the concept of a space drill is relatively new,” Parsons said. “We’re having to find ways to utilize scientific instruments, designed to work in a lab, in an environment no man has ever stepped foot on.”

In June 2015, Congress approved funding for a mission to Europa -— a giant leap from Galileo’s flyby in 2003. The mission evolved when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above Europa in 2012. The spacecraft, scheduled to launch in the 2020s, will orbit Jupiter for several reconnaissance flybys of the moon. But in December, Congress added a twist: a mandate that a surface lander be included.

DEEPLY ROOTED IN TRUSSVILLE

Parsons says he wouldn’t be where he is today if it wasn’t for his Trussville schools education.

“I got my foundation there, which prepared me to be able to handle this career path,” he said.

He developed his work ethic and pride in work through the leadership of Mike Jones in the Hewitt-Trussville Husky Band. It was physics that made for an easier freshman year at Auburn and a “strong foundation in writing and communication” he received from the HTHS English department, which helps him effectively explain his analysis to other engineers and scientists.

And Parsons says the hardest class he ever had, including college, was Bob Haynes’ AP U.S. History at HTHS.

“What I appreciated about him is his class wasn’t hard for the sake of being hard, he really pushed for critical thinking, which has been an important skill,” Parsons said.

Haynes, who says he has taught two NASA employees during his 34-year career, said his AP course included a writing process that required students to read for themes, analyze information and try to tie things together. He said he isn’t surprised Parsons is where he is today.

“He was just one of these people who was dedicated and focused on why he was there to do what he was supposed to do. He was active in other things, but he was there to get school right,” Haynes recalled.

Parsons says he welcomes teachers, students or others interested in learning more about his work to email him at parsods@yahoo.com.