Jacob R. Matijevic, 1947-2012

Engineer worked on Mars rover missions

October 10, 2012|By Bob Goldsborough, Special to the Tribune
  • Jacob Matijevic taught math at universities in Kentucky and California before joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1981.
Jacob Matijevic taught math at universities in Kentucky and California before joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1981. (handout, HANDOUT)

Jacob R. Matijevic was trained as a mathematician and spent time as a math professor, but he found his greatest professional success as an engineer working on exploration projects that studied the climate and geology of Mars.

"The Mars rovers that he worked on are very complex systems, and no one person can know the entirety of each one of these systems," said John Callas, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover. "He was the most knowledgeable person on the entirety of the system, so if you had a question, he was the guy to go to."

Mr. Matijevic, 64, died Monday, Aug. 20, of a traumatic lung event at his home in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area, said his brother Paul. He battled asthma and other upper respiratory ailments his entire life, his brother said.

Mr. Matijevic grew up on Chicago's Southeast Side and graduated from Mt. Carmel High School. He received a bachelor's degree in math from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1969, then completed a Ph.D. in math from the University of Chicago in 1973.

He taught math at the University of Kentucky and the University of Southern California before joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in 1981.

From 1981 to 1986, he was a control systems engineer at the lab, overseeing design teams. From 1986 to 1992, he worked in the field of telerobotics, including integrating mechanical arms, machine vision systems and sensing instruments into a working telerobot system.

In 1992, Mr. Matijevic started on the first of three Mars rover missions he would work on, the robotic rover Sojourner that was launched in 1996 from the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft. Among other things, Mr. Matijevic focused on the design of the six-wheeled rover.

Ultimately, Sojourner was a successful part of the Pathfinder mission, studying Mars' rocks and soil, taking photos and investigating the planet's magnetic and mechanical properties.

Two other Mars rover missions followed, the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers that began exploring the planet in January 2004, and Curiosity, whose spacecraft landed in early August, just two weeks before Mr. Matijevic's death.

After his death, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory decided to commemorate his contributions on the Mars rover projects by assigning the name "Jake Matijevic" to a nine-by-16-inch, pyramidal basalt rock that Curiosity encountered on Mars last month.

NASA also gave the name Matijevic Hill to a site on the other side of Mars that Opportunity, now well into its ninth year exploring the Red Planet, is investigating.

Friends and family said Mr. Matijevic never would have expected such immortal honors for his work.

"When we talked, he would never give you the sense that he had that much level of responsibility for the success of what was going on on these Mars missions," his brother said. "We would talk about the projects for sure, but he was always talking about the science of them and the cool things that were going on, and not about his particular role."

Mr. Matijevic is also survived by his mother, Helen; and two sisters, Maryhelen and Patricia.

Services were held.