Katie Stack Morgan

I was watching the landing from my living room in my kitchen.

And we were actually on line with our science team because we weren't allowed to co-locate because this was during COVID.

And so I was watching it on the TV.

I was watching my computer, looking at our team members and my family was around me.

I was a happy-go-lucky grad student back then.

I was just in it for the ride, and I was enjoying, you know, all of the fanfare surrounding a rover landing.

I very much felt like my career was dependent on this successful landing.

I had kids now.

My family was depending on this rover to land.

And so the stakes felt much higher.

I just burst into tears because just the swell of emotion, it was just too much.

And I just cried.

I cried happy tears, relief tears.

But then I was like, oh my gosh, our job is just starting.

And of course, the engineers are celebrating a lot of them.

You know, they're done.

They move on to another project.

They've gotten the rover to Mars.

And for us, it was like, oh no, now it gets down to business.

And so I was like, okay, we've got a long night ahead of us.