Ghanaian robotics engineer at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, continues to make major contributions to space exploration through his work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Born to Ga parents in Accra, he is the chief engineer and technical group leader for the mobility and manipulation group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he has been involved in several Mars missions including the Mars Rover and InSight projects.

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After joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1999, he became the leader of the team that designed the Mars Rover robot that successfully landed on the red planet.

He also worked on the Phoenix spacecraft which discovered water on Mars, and played a key role in the InSight mission which successfully landed on the red planet on Monday, November 26, 2018.

After completing his secondary education, he moved to the United Kingdom where he obtained a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) in Avionics from Queen Mary College, University of London in 1991.

Dr Trebi-Ollennu is also the founder of the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation, which won the prestigious Google RISE Award in 2013.

Speaking about his work in an old interview, he described the excitement of contributing to historic missions.

“It’s always exciting that you’re going to work on a mission that is going to make the footnote of history. I’m Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu and I work on robotic arms for planetary exploration. This is a mock-up of the InSight lander,” he said.

Trebi-Ollennu shared how his childhood in Ghana, living very close to the Airport and seeing planes inspired his career path.

“When I was a kid in Ghana, I lived very close to the airport, so I was very interested in aircrafts flying and always dreamt of taking humans out of the cockpit and just making computers fly.

“And I think I’m doing the same thing here. We’re making things autonomous. To see it from paper to actualization is so much fun,” he shared.

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The InSight spacecraft is designed to study the interior of Mars, listening for marsquakes and gathering data to understand the planet’s formation.



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