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FORMER Launceston man Marcel Schoppers has played an essential role in the the latest Mars landing.
The ex-Queechy High School student led a team that wrote the flight software that operates the 10 scientific instruments on board the one tonne $2.36 billion nuclear-powered robot, Curiosity, which landed on the planet yesterday to look for evidence of life on Mars.
``I've had that role for seven years, I probably averaged 60 hours work a week all that time, and I am one of the very few people who have worked on the rover from beginning to end, and I can't tell you how lucky I am to have got that role and kept it,'' Mr Schoppers said.
``I've managed a small team of three to five software developers, to implement the command sets.
``And there's lots of other engineers and scientists to collaborate with, to build something that's user-friendly for the scientists.
``Over 3000 people inside the Jet Propulsion Laboratory alone have worked on this rover, not even counting the people that built the instruments.''
Mr Schoppers, originally from the Netherlands, lived in Launceston between 1966 and 1974 before he moved to Canberra to obtain a master of science degree at the Australian National University.
In 1981, he moved to the US to complete a PhD, before securing a job with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory a decade later.
Mr Schoppers said the mission was following up evidence found from the four previous rovers to explore the Martian surface.
``We have learnt previously that there was once water on Mars and where there's water, there's life usually on Earth, so it's continuing the process of looking for life and trying to understand the ancient geology of Mars,'' Mr Schoppers said.