Hiro Ono's Odyssey

I’ll leave JPL and join Georgia Tech as an associate prof. Looking for students and post-docs in robotics, AI/ML, and space systems. If interested, LMK via this form.

The President’s budget request proposed a 47% cut from NASA’s science budget. It includes the cancellation of upcoming missions such as Mars Sample Return, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, DAVINCI, and VERITAS. It would also shut down a number of spacecraft that are already in deep space and collecting valuable science data, such as Juno, […]

I was a former international student. I grew up in Japan, studied at MIT, and I am currently working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In the last couple of days, international students in US universities have suddenly become a hotly debated topic, but the debate is mainly from political or legal standpoints. So, I thought […]

When I was driving the Mars rover, it encountered a rock that wanted to pass a message to us. So I downlinked it and translated it into English and Russian. Когда я управлял марсоходом, он наткнулся на камень, который хотел передать нам сообщение. Я передал его по каналу связи и перевел на английский и русский […]

The year 2021 was full of triumphs in humanity’s venture to space. The Mars Rover Perseverance (cost: $2.75B), which I have been proudly working on for seven years, landed on the red planet in February to search for the sign of ancient extraterrestrial life. To the relief of many anxious scientists and engineers who are […]

I translated a science picture book, “Rocket Science for Babies” from Chris Ferrie‘s Baby University series, which sold more than a million copies worldwide in total. The Japanese version will be published today. On top of translation, I had the honor of writing the preface and the commentary for the Japanese version, which are posted […]

For most of us, life is too short to be a billionaire or the president, but long enough to make a couple of humble dreams come true. I’m already 38. Probably around the halfway point of this life. Some dreams came true while many others have not. I am still struggling. While I am far […]

It was reported that the Mars Rover Opportunity, which lost contact in June 2018 due to the Martian global dust storm, was rescued by the Curiosity Rover on April 1, 2019. About a month and a half ago, the Opportunity operation team gave up contacting the rover and declared the end of the mission. However, […]

I think every NASA employee has a special spacecraft that inspired him or her in childhood. Apollo 11 is by far the most prominent source of inspiration among the old-timers. Many recent new employees chose NASA because of Mar rovers. For me, it was Voyager 2. For that reason, I read the news on this […]

My life is dual. It has two sides in two distant places, between which I shuttle back and forth bi-weekly. One of the two sides is in Los Angeles, where you cannot tell the season from sky because it is always as blue as possible. At dusk, I finish work, drive my car back home, […]