My Life on Mars: Working for the Mars Program

Exploring the Mars Frontier requires scientists, engineers and artists.

The Art of Exploration

My name is Corby Waste and I create artwork for the NASA Mars Exploration Program which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Since 1998 I've been at JPL visualizing Mars missions. I have to imagine what it's like to be on Mars or in orbit. Before I arrived at the Lab the Mars program mostly used paintings of their spacecraft. I create my artwork with computer graphics. Most likely you've already seen my Mars or other mission artwork for years but never knew who created them because the image credits usually say only: NASA JPL. It's a big job helping to open up the Mars Frontier but someone has to do it!

I am on Twitter as @MissionArtist.

I haven't updated this whole section since 2010 and a lot has happened since then, like my GRAIL logo launch in Sept. 2011, the selection of the InSight Discovery mission with my artwork and my 15 cover illustrations for the National Academy of Science's Decadal Survey planetary mission studies. Basically, my job now includes much of JPL's Solar System and Moon mission artwork in addition to Mars. In 2012 I created an extensive series of images for the Mars Reformulation effort, orbiters, rovers and landers. NASA decided to select a 2020 rover.

There are graphical links all through this site - just click on everything to learn more. I'm working on a "poster gallery" with various larger images of my art and career highlights like this example

on Mars: Working for the Program

NEW

2016 InSight Mars Lander

Discovery Program

2013 MAVEN Artwork

"MAVEN studying Mars atmosphere's loss to space" is an image I created in 2009 showing the 2013 MAVEN Mars Scout mission. MAVEN stands for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution".

My GRAIL logo was launched on the side of the rocket in September, 2011. I was the main GRAIL mission artist.

Axel Rover descending cliff to collect water samples for return to Earth

2018 MAX-C Rover (cancelled)

Mars Sample Return (MSR) Studies

Titan Saturn Saturn System Outer Planets Flagship Study

2011 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Launch: October, 2011

Oct. 8, 2008: Cost Overruns Threaten NASA's Next-Generation Mars Rover Project. The article used my artwork and added the words "What A Waste". Too bad the article didn't include the image credit: Corby Waste, that would have been a really odd coincidence!

2007 Phoenix Mars Lander

Launched August 4, 2007

Landed on Mars May 25, 2008

My Phoenix Mars Lander artwork appeared all over the world-wide media because of it's successful mission. The graphic link above shows me in front of the Phoenix Mars Lander at Lockheed Martin Space Systems near Denver in 2007.

Phoenix Mars Lander snapped these images showing the midnight Sun and clouds on Mars!

New Phoenix 3D

Highly Recommended!

A remarkable story that is partly illustrated with my Phoenix artwork (but the real credit goes to Steve the Cat's owner)

2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Launched Aug. 2005

Arrived in orbit March, 2006

I created a whole series of MRO images.

Welcome to Mars, "Mr. O"! 2005: I went to see MRO at Lockheed Martin Space Systems near Denver, Colorado and take pictures. That's me in two of the pictures

MRO project manger Jim Graf shaking hand of Dr. Firouz Naderi, with JPL Director Charles Elachi in the center. Note that they are all wearing MRO Flight Operations Team shirts with my logo on them, standing in front of my artwork on the wall. They're also wearing special MRO MOI event badges with my artwork as well. It was a great day for Mars exploration and my artwork!

NASA JPL has 2 highly sophisticated twin rovers called "Spirit" and "Opportunity" on Mars. They've been operating successfully now since January of 2004 and are still going strong. During the spring of 2004 my office was located with part of the rover team. Click on the images below to learn more.

Mars Express

NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission. All of the images of Mars Express on the US mission website were created by me. The Mars Express mission is turning out to be very important scientifically and the pictures it sends back are amazing - they can be seen here. Below is a recent example of the high quality images Mars Express is capturing.

Mars Express image of water ice in crater at Martian north pole

It is a special pleasure to be part of such a successful international Mars mission. JPL played a key part in it's success.

2001 Mars Odyssey

I created virtually all of the NASA artwork for the 2001 mission

Mars Surveyor 98

Mars Climate Orbiter

Mars Polar Lander

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)

Entered Mars orbit on September 11, 1997

Missing presumed lost November, 2006

My now famous image of Mars Global Surveyor

Sept. 20, 2006 at JPL: I finally got to meet astronaut, scientist, educator/author Sally Ride in person. She played a part in my creation of the Mars Global Surveyor image, left.

10 years on Mars!

2008 marked my 10th anniversary of helping the Mars program at JPL. Many people have asked me how I was able to get such a great job. Perhaps reading about my previous space experiences will help explain. Click on the link below to read about some my pre-JPL hightlights.

National Research Council Mars books

These books are basically detailed reports from the top experts on what the future priorities of the Mars Exploration Program should be. All five books feature some of my Mars mission artwork on their covers. Click on them to learn more.

My own Mars stamps!

I've discovered 70 of my Mars mission images on foreign postage stamps! So far they've been issued by Guyana, Nevis, Niger, Palau, Somalia, Madagascar, Guinea, Dominica, Togo, Tanzania, Gambia, Cote D'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, the Comoro Islands, Grenada-Carriacou, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Niue, Kiribati, Liberia, Benin, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe . Click on them to see the collection. My Mars artwork has also appeared in books, on mugs, watches, toy boxes, clothes, etc., but this is one of my favorites.

Corby Crater in the news

Click on the articles from Corby, UK

Corby Waste, JPL, mentioned on BBC Comedy Show !

Andrew Rees, a friend from my years in Tenby, Wales, UK (1962-1964) rediscovered me this way:

"LAST SATURDAY I WAS WATCHING A PROGAMME ON BBC 1 HERE IN SUNNY OLD PEMBROKESHIRE AND LO AND BEHOLD THE NAME CORBY WASTE CAME UP. THE PROG IS CALLED 'QI' AS IN 'QUITE INTERESTING', A SORT OF A PANEL GAME HOSTED BY STEPHEN FRY. THEY HAD BEEN TALKING ABOUT CORBY IN THE UK, THE CORBY TROUSER PRESS, CORBY WASTE DISPOSAL ETC AND FRY MENTIONED YOUR NAME IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR WORK AT JPL."