NASA | SAM Engineer Profile: Synthia Tonn

This video profiles Synthia Tonn, a junior engineer on the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument team responsible for SAM's ground support equipment as well as its 'plumbing,' or the series of tiny, winding gas lines that connect SAM's various instruments. Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a suite of instruments developed for use on the Mars Science Laboratory. By looking for evidence of water, carbon, and other important building blocks of life in the Mars soil and atmosphere, this suite will help answer one of humankind's biggest questions about the planet: did it ever support life? SAM was designed and built in an international collaboration between Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Paris, and Honeybee Robotics.