© 2023 90.7 WMFE. All Rights Reserved.
Public Media News for Central Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

A year on Mars & the gift of space

Chris Sembroski and Kyle Hippchen at SpaceX's LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. Photo: Kyle Hippchen
Chris Sembroski and Kyle Hippchen at SpaceX's LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. Photo: Kyle Hippchen

NASA’s Perseverance rover is celebrating one year on Mars. The robot explorer arrived last year after a seven month journey from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It’s on the hunt for evidence of ancient life on Mars and is tasked with selecting and preparing samples of Martian rocks to send back to Earth.

While it has spent a year on the red planet, its work is only just beginning. We’ll speak with Briony  Horgan, a planetary scientist at Purdue who is also working on the Perseverance mission about its busy first year and what’s to come for NASA’s newest Martian explorer.

Then, SpaceX’s Inspiration 4 mission sent four civilian astronauts into space. One of those astronauts is Chris Sembrosky and he won his seat through a raffle, or so we thought. Turns out his friend Kyle Hippchen actually won the seat, but after learning he didn’t meet certain physical requirements for the mission, he gave it up to Chris.

We’ll talk with both of them about Kyle’s gift to Chris and how he followed along during his journey to space and back.

Brendan Byrne is WMFE's Assistant News Director, managing the day-to-day operations of the WMFE newsroom, editing daily news stories, and managing WMFE's internship program.

Byrne also hosts WMFE's weekly radio show and podcast "Are We There Yet?" which explores human space exploration.
90.7 WMFE relies on donors like you. Your support allows us to provide independent, trustworthy journalism and fact-based content. Show your support today by contributing on a monthly basis or making a single online donation.