From NJ to NASA: Space explorer credits archdiocesan Space Camp scholarship program for career path
If something big happens on Mars – like discovering alien life forms – Rachel Kronyak will be among the first to know about it.
“We’re always looking,” Kronyak said. “Trust me. We want to find them as much as everybody else does.”
Kronyak, who attended the Archdiocese of Newark’s Catholic elementary and high schools in North Arlington, N.J., works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif and is part of the mission exploring Mars. As a Systems Engineer, Kronyak’s job is to build the operations plan sent up to the Perseverance rover at the end of each day. In other words: she gets to boss the rover around by telling it where to go and what to do.
“It definitely feels like a dream come true,” Kronyak said. “I still really can’t believe that I get to do this every day. We really are exploring a brand new place on Mars. It’s fun. It makes me feel like an astronaut a little bit.”
Kronyak will be the first to tell you that the mission is a team effort and that it’s never one person making the decisions.
“We have tens of hundreds of people calling in at the same time offering their opinions about what they think we should do with the rover,” she said. “I’m the one that’s actually putting together the activities. I make sure they all fit within the rover resources for the day and then kind of sketching out what the plans might look like over the next week or so.”
Kronyak interacts with the engineers who provide input about where Perseverance can drive on Mars and how the robotic arm can be used. She also works with the scientific instruments that shoot the laser, take photographs, and collect the science data that the team is after.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s really fun because I get to sort of be in the middle of it all,” she said. “No two days are the same on Mars. That’s what keeps it interesting. And we always have to be prepared to expect the unexpected because things never go as planned, it seems like.”
The mission is still relatively young. After a seven-month journey, Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.
Kronyak said the team is constantly learning about the rover and its capabilities and improving operations. The team is also learning new things about Mars every day, she said. For example, before the launch, they expected to encounter certain types of rocks on the Red Planet. But now that the rover is there exploring, it’s still not certain what the rocks are made of.
Becoming a space explorer
If it hadn’t been for Kronyak’s high school biology teacher, who told her about the availability of a Space Camp scholarship, she might not have found her way to NASA.
“I didn’t know about the scholarship,” Kronyak said. “She told me about it, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s an incredible opportunity. I would love to do that.’ I had no idea what my chances were, so I applied, and, oh man, I was thrilled when I got it. It was so exciting.’”
The experience was made possible by the Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children, a non-profit organization that works in partnership with the Archdiocese of Newark. This is the 25th year the organization has sent Catholic high school students from the Archdiocese to the Advanced Space Academy at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.
“It was just the most incredible experience,” Kronyak said of her time at Space Camp.
She quickly became friends with the others in her mission group for the week and learned the importance of teamwork.
“The sense that you are working towards something that’s larger than yourself — that really stuck with me at Space Camp,” Kronyak said. “I think that’s really what inspired me to continue along that path. The mission that you’re working towards is way more important than the individuals working towards it. And I just found that to be a very exciting and a very inspiring mindset and something that you can carry forward into any career, not just space exploration.”
She said she went into Space Camp with a very open mind and left knowing she wanted to pursue a career in space exploration.
“I’m just super excited to hear that the scholarship is still so active and gets to send people to Space Camp,” Kronyak said. “It was such a monumental experience for me. People might not get the chance to go on their own if they don’t have the opportunity that the scholarship affords. I’m just really delighted to hear that it’s still going strong.”
Kronyak went on to study Geobiology at Penn State University and received a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. For two summers, she interned at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. At graduate school, she experienced Mars missions with the Curiosity rover team.
“Another interesting part about my career is that no two people have the same path,” she said. “And so I left space camp knowing that I wanted to pursue some kind of career in space exploration, but I really didn’t know what that looked like.”
She found her way by majoring in geology, a field that interested her and seemed applicable to exploring planets and moons and other places in the solar system.
“Once I started getting some experience with mission operation, that’s really what nailed it for me,” Kronyak said.
After graduate school, she moved to California to work at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for postdoctoral research. That opportunity transitioned into a more permanent position in mission operations.
When asked what lessons she could share with students with similar aspirations, Kronyak said it’s essential to be a team player and communicate well.
“You don’t have to be the best at everything,” she said. “You just have to be able to contribute what you can contribute and trust and rely on your teammates that at the end of the day you’ll get there together as a team. Not everything goes as planned, and that’s just life. You know that you’ve done the best that you personally could have, and you know that your teammates have done the same, so whatever the outcome is, you can take pride in what you’ve done together as a team.”
Kronyak said people might be scared of pursuing a career in science or engineering because they think they have to be the smartest person in the room.
“That’s just not the case,” she said. “I struggled with math and physics classes in college just like everybody else. But at the end of the day, I was a hard worker. I persevered. That’s really what matters is your work ethic, your ability to be a team player, and being a good listener. And those are skills that are applicable to every part of life, not just your job.”
Kronyak said the Perseverance mission will transition to returning rock and soil samples to earth over the next decade. She would love to be a part of that experience, she said or perhaps exploring a different planet one day.
To learn more about the Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children, visit www.SFICNJ.org.
Featured image: Rachel Kronyak sits beside a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park during a graduate school field trip to test the astrobiological potential of the site. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Kronyak)
