Namibia’s Dr Japie van Zyl to address audience in Walvis Bay on latest successful Mars landing

Floris Steenkamp

Namibia’s Dr Japie van Zyl to address audience in Walvis Bay on latest successful Mars landing

Coastal residents and visitors can hear first-hand on 19 December of mankind’s newest space feat: NASA’S InSight lander that touched down on the surface of planet Mars on Sunday night (25 November 2018). One of the people behind this successful mission is Namibian-born Dr Japie van Zyl (he grew up at Outjo) who heads NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in the United States of America.

Dr van Zyl will be visiting Namibia in December this year and will be traveling to Walvis Bay where on 19 December he will address an audience on his personal experiences in regards to this latest space project. In fact, Dr van Zyl is passionate about Namibia and his fellow Namibians and regularly returns here to deliver talks on his career and his knowledge of the world that exists beyond our planet’s atmosphere.
InSight blasted off from earth on 5 May this year and it took the craft six months and 21 days to travel approximately 483 million kilometres to Mars [roughly estimated into an average speed of near 100 000 kilometres per hour [although the approached speed to Mars in the final weeks before In-Sight touched down were gradually slowed down up to a point where a parachute deployed and rockets activated to break the lander’s speed for a soft landing]. All this was made possible thanks to the successes of NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory.
InSight lander now prepares to deploy instruments which over the course of the next two years would probe Mar’s subterranean composition.
∙Dr Japie will deliver his talk on 19 December at 18:30 at the Walvis Bay Community Church in Nangolo Mbumba Avenue.
It is organised in conjunction with the Municipality of Walvis Bay and the Library’s American Corner.