Life as a space engineer at NASA JPL

Those Space People

Heather Ann Bottom is a systems engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has a background in astrophysics and space engineering. She is currently based in Hawaii. Most recently, Heather has been a part of the Perseverance rover team of the Mars 2020 mission.

Unlike most space folk, Heather was once a professional dance performer and had dreams of being on Broadway before she caught the space bug. She draws interesting parallels between space missions and the performing arts. Having worked on the launch and cruise phases of the super cool Perseverance rover, she shares insights on the finer aspects of the Mars 2020 and other NASA missions. Having formerly worked with SpaceX, she talks about the differences in working on space missions at a research lab compared to an agile private company like SpaceX.