Graduate Student Gets First-Hand Insight to Mars Mission

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Rachel Slank was at the Green Bank Observatory last month to receive the first signal from the Mars Insight landing.

University of Arkansas graduate student Rachel Slank has long dreamed of being an astronaut. She's dedicated her academic research to the study of space. So, when offered the chance to be part of the Mars InSight landing, she jumped.

Slank, who is pursuing a doctorate in the university's Space and Planetary Sciences Program, was in the control room of West Virginia's Green Bank Observatory last month to receive the first signal from the landing.

The observatory is home to the Green Bank Telescope. The telescope is so sensitive, it detected the entire entry of InSight. NASA has a delayed connection to the Mars lander, due to the distance from Earth to Mars. However, the observatory telescope is powerful enough to track it in real time.

"It was incredible to feel the energy and excitement of the mission in person," Slank said.

While at the Green Bank Observatory, Slank gave keynote presentations about the InSight mission to local science students and the general public. The presentations were live-streamed to several National Radio Astronomy Observatory locations and West Virginia science centers.

Slank is a space and planetary sciences doctoral student. Her research is centered on learning how liquids form on Mars and how water vapor interacts with soil on the red planet. She spent four months interning at the Green Bank Observatory earlier this year. She is advised by Vincent Chevrier.