Abstract: Exploring the universe and our own planet Earth from space has been the mission of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Robotics missions such as Voyager, which continues to go beyond our solar system, missions to Mars and other planets, exploring the stars and galaxies for astrophysics missions Fundamental science questions drive the selection of NASA missions and innovative instrument development We design and build instruments to make measurements that can answer those science questions In this lecture, we will present an overview of the state of the art instruments that we are currently developing and layout the details of the science questions they will try to answer Rapid progress on multiple fronts, such as commercial software for component and device modeling, low loss circuits and interconnect technologies, cell phone technologies, and submicron scale lithographic techniques are making it possible for us to design and develop smart, low power yet very powerful instruments that can even fit in a SmallSat or CubeSat We will also discuss the challenges of the future generation instruments in addressing the needs for critical scientific applications.

Brief Biography of Speaker: Prof. Goutam Chattopadhyay has been a BEL Distinguished Visiting Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technol ogy (Caltech), Pasadena, in 2000. He is a Fellow of IEEE (USA) and IETE (India), Track Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, and the President Elect for IEEE MT T S for 2024. His research interests include microwave, millimeter wave, and terahertz receiver systems and radars, and development of space i nstruments for the search for life beyond Earth. He has more than 375 publications in international journals and conferences and holds more than twenty patents. He also received more than 35 NASA technical achie vem ent and new technology invention awards. He received the NASA JPL People Leadership Award in 2023, IEEE Region 6 Engineer of the Year Award in 2018, Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India in 2017. He was the recipient of the best journal paper award in 2020 and 2013 by IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, best paper award for antenna design and applications at the European Antennas and Propagation conference (EuCAP) in 2017, and IETE Prof. S. N. Mitra Memorial Award in 2014 and IETE Biman Bihari Sen Memorial Award in 2022.