The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Tom Hoffman, JPL Project Manager of Mars InSight, will address the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California, to give an update about the lander’s ongoing mission.



Mars InSight successfully landed on the surface of the Red Planet in November 2018 in order to examine the deep interior of Mars with the goal of helping scientists better understand how terrestrial planets are formed and evolve. The lander’s operational mission is expected to last approximately two years.



A senior veteran at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mr. Hoffman has been involved in a number of major flight projects, including working on software for the Voyager spacecraft’s encounter with Neptune, testing computer hardware for the Cassini mission to Saturn, participating in the STARDUST mission to the WILD-2 comet as a member of the project systems engineering team, contributing to the Mars rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) as Avionics Systems Manager and serving as Deputy Project Manager for the GRAIL mission to the Moon.



Mr. Hoffman earned a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California in Computer Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.



For more information about the 2019 International Mars Society Convention, including registration and volunteer details, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org). A list of confirmed speakers and a tentative program itinerary will be posted online in the near future.