Firouz Naderi was a scientist with NASA who led several missions to Mars.
- Died: June 9, 2023 (Who else died on June 9?)
- Details of death: Died at a medical facility in Los Angeles of complications from a fall at the age of 77.
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Firouz Naderi’s legacy
Naderi was a native of Iran who came to the U.S. to attend college and receive his doctorate. After returning to Iran for a few years, he returned to the U.S. in 1979 after his home country’s revolution, staying here for the rest of his life. He built a scientific career that became an inspiration to his fellow Iranian immigrants, joining NASA shortly after he arrived in the U.S. as a communications system engineer.
In 2000, Naderi was named program manager of NASA’s Mars program, and he would go on to oversee at least five Mars missions. They included the landings of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which explored the surface of the planet and sent fascinating photos and data back to Earth. Other missions were the Mars orbiters Odyssey and Reconnaissance, which continue to orbit the planet and collect data, and the Mars Sample Return program, which will launch later in the decade to bring samples collected by the rovers back to Earth. In 2005, Naderi was honored with NASA’s highest honor, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. An asteroid was named in his honor upon his 2016 retirement, 5515 Naderi.
Naderi had a moment in the spotlight at the 2017 Academy Awards when he took the stage to accept an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film on behalf of Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. Farhadi was boycotting the Oscars due to U.S. restrictions on immigration from countries that included Iran, and he asked Naderi and Iranian American engineer Anousheh Ansari to represent him onstage.
Notable quote
“Once you go away from the Earth into space, and you look back at the Earth, you see it as a single blue marble. You see no borders, no lines, separating people.” —from a 2017 interview for the World
Tributes to Firouz Naderi
Full obituary: The New York Times
