At Qualcomm, Carmel Valley resident Raja Gosula labored on chips for cell telephones.
“Once I left the corporate, I simply didn’t consider it anymore,” mentioned Gosula, who was born in India, grew up in Brazil and has been in San Diego for greater than 20 years.
He now works for Cisco. However after NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made it to Mars, he began getting texts from his former Qualcomm colleagues.
They mentioned, “‘Hey, do you know our chip is on Mars?’ “I’m like actually? Why? How?” Gosula mentioned.
Gosula mentioned he led 10 engineers about eight years in the past because the digital design lead on the chip that ended up contributing to the Mars flight.
After he left, the chip grew to become a part of the Ingenuity, which grew to become the primary ever autonomous plane to make a powered, managed flight on one other planet on April 19. Based on NASA, the flight was confirmed profitable at 3:46 a.m. native time. Gosula mentioned he “really obtained teary eyed watching” a recording of the flight.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s affiliate administrator for science, mentioned in a information launch that the Mars flight marked one other “iconic” second in aviation historical past.
“Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the primary flight on our planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has succeeded in performing this superb feat on one other world,” Zurbuchen mentioned.
Appearing NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyka mentioned in an announcement that the flight is a part of a “lengthy and storied custom of NASA initiatives attaining an area exploration objective as soon as thought not possible.”
Gosula and his spouse celebrated his contribution to the Mars flight, despite the fact that he by no means had any out-of-this-world aspirations. His curiosity was at all times in shopper merchandise.
“It’s a coincidence that I labored for a cellular phone firm that determined to make a drone later after I left,” he mentioned.
However he nonetheless marvels {that a} chip he developed is finishing up its operate on one other planet.
“I can’t even describe it,” Gosula mentioned. “It’s so cool. With out even planning or taking part within the house program in any respect, you get to brag about this.”
He added in a celebratory Fb publish that his achievement in designing the chip “goes to point out you that once you design merchandise with robustness, care, thorough modeling/testing and comply with good processes, you get a end result you could be happy with, and also you by no means know the place it may possibly find yourself. On this case, unexpectedly on Mars!”