Lars Blackmore is the Senior Principal Mars Landing Engineer at SpaceX. In his role he and his team are tackling an array of new problems that will need to be solved for SpaceX to reach the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
He took on the role of Principal Mars Landing Engineer in 2018, and was promoted to Senior Principal in March 2020. From 2011 to 2018 he was responsible for Entry, Descent and Landing of the Falcon 9 rocket, as part of SpaceX’s reusable launch vehicle program. His team developed the precision landing technology for the Grasshopper rocket, the F9R-Dev rocket, the F9 reusable booster stage and the Falcon Heavy boosters. Previously he was in the Guidance and Control Analysis Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, part of the California Institute of Technology, where he developed control and estimation algorithms for NASA’s future space missions. He co-invented the G-FOLD algorithm for precision landing on Mars, and was part of the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) mission, which launched in January 2015. Lars was named one of MIT Tech Review’s “35 under 35” innovators and has a PhD in Guidance, Navigation and Control from the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Mr. Erasmo Piñero has over 35 years of aircraft operations, systems integration, and flight test experience. He has been with Bell Textron since 2012, where he is currently responsible for propulsion analysis, engine systems integration, and flight test propulsion discipline support on the Bell V-280 demonstrator. Previously, Mr. Piñero worked in propulsion integration and flight test on the Bell Boeing V-22, the F-35 Lightning II, and its predecessor the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Additionally, he has worked on structural design, avionics system installations, and airframe structural analysis for the Sikorsky S-76, S-70, S-92, and Comanche helicopters. Mr. Piñero is also a veteran of the United States Navy, where he served as a Naval Flight Officer, accumulating eight hundred hours of flying time on twelve different naval aircraft.
Outside of his professional responsibilities, Mr. Piñero is interested in aircraft preliminary design, propulsion integration, preservation, and aviation history. He is a frequent contributor to trade magazines and the Journal Vertiflite of the Vertical Flight Society, and regularly delivers lectures and presentations at selected universities, conventions, professional societies, public schools and aviation-oriented clubs, with the goal of educating the public and to encourage young people to pursue careers in aeronautical engineering.
