What are the challenges of building a robot that operates millions of kilometers away on another planet? It has always fascinated me how NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) repeatedly builds cutting-edge autonomous robots and gets them to work beyond Earth, especially since the conditions of other planets are hard to recreate here. I got a taste of how much real-world testing matters at ETH Zurich, building an autonomous underwater drone swarm in the focus project SWARM and a high-speed, high-agility drone in my joint Bachelor’s thesis at the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL). Many key problems only appeared once the full system was tested under real conditions. I spent three months in JPL’s Aerial Robotic Systems group this summer, where part of my work was contributing to a testing and integration campaign.

Ingenuity, the first helicopter on Mars, flew itself, but its waypoints and landing areas were planned on Earth. Future rotorcraft will need to find safe landing sites among rocks and slopes on their own, even in an emergency. With no GPS on Mars, pose is estimated with a single camera, a laser range finder and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). As the drone moves, images from different positions form a stereo pair, producing a depth map that is used to find landing sites.

My task was to help bring the autonomy stack from working in simulation to working on our research hexacopter. Real-world tests revealed issues simulation didn’t anticipate, sometimes seemingly small ones: the dim lab light caused image noise that degraded the depth map, so we removed the neutral-density (ND) filter in these conditions. By the end, the hexacopter found landing sites on outdoor flights. Thanks to my drone-flying experience, I could pilot many of the tests. From a Swiss perspective, Pasadena comes close to a desert. Some days hit 39°C and we survived cold water and a fan. But working on something so interesting lets you forget the heat. Quite a shift from my last tests at ETH: −7°C and snow.

I also upgraded research drones and assessed whether a 4K rolling-shutter camera could complement the proven low-resolution global-shutter navigation camera to let a future Mars helicopter fly higher at the same ground resolution. Working with some of the same sensors and computer models expected to fly on Mars one day was inspiring.

On the weekends, together with other interns, I explored the beautiful landscape nearby. After an exchange semester in Singapore, LA was quite a change, to say the least: cars, streets and parking lots everywhere. On a drive to Orange County, Google Maps could barely fit all ten lanes on the screen. Healthy food was tricky, yet I already miss the unlimited soda fountains and In-N-Out. I was also surprised by how well Waymo’s autonomous taxis worked: they drove us around so quickly and confidently that it almost scared us.

I loved the mix of fascinating work and exploring a new country. I’d encourage anyone with the chance to work or study abroad to just go for it.

A big thanks to Roland Brockers and Preston Rogers for this opportunity and their guidance, and to ETH Zurich’s StudioX for their financial support.

In January, I packed my bags and flew to Pasadena, California, to start a six-month adventure at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I joined the team working on a future Mars rotorcraft, contributing to a project aimed at pushing the boundaries set by Ingenuity, the pioneering Mars helicopter. This marked the start of an unforgettable chapter, both as an engineer and as a person.

Life at JPL

Life at JPL was unlike anywhere else I’ve worked before. On any given day, you might walk past engineers testing new rover prototypes in the courtyard or catch a glimpse of hardware being readied for launch in the clean rooms. I even got to meet the astronauts from the Artemis crew when they dropped by to visit! All of this felt extraordinary at first, but gradually became part of everyday life. I was part of the software team developing algorithms for an Earth-based demonstrator drone, which serves as a testbed for technologies that could one day guide a future Mars rotorcraft. My main focus was on the autonomy side: designing and refining the software that allows the drone to plan missions, execute waypoint navigation, and make real-time decisions during flight. This is critical, since a drone on Mars cannot be controlled in real time due to communication delays among other things. I also contributed to perception algorithms that detect safe landing sites in rough terrain which is a crucial capability for future planetary flying vehicles. Beyond coding, a big part of the work was integrating and testing everything on real hardware, ensuring the algorithms performed just as well in the lab and outdoors as they did in simulation. Beyond developing algorithms, a big part of the experience was bringing them to life through real drone tests. Our lab had an indoor drone testing room where we could fly whenever needed, and the campus also featured an outdoor drone yard which is essentially a large netted area designed specially for safe flight testing. Supervisors and senior engineers, many of whom had actually worked on Ingenuity itself, stopped by regularly to give guidance and feedback. It was a great environment to learn and develop in, and it was extremely motivating and inspiring.

Testing in the Desert

A particularly memorable part of the internship was a field trip to Death Valley National Park, where our team tested our drones in Mars-like terrain. The goal was to evaluate how well our algorithms handled challenging, unstructured environments which is a valuable step before moving to more advanced trials. The setting, with its dry valleys and rugged rock formations, offered a striking reminder of what exploration on another planet might feel like and the challenges it posed for our perception algorithms. It was demanding work under the sun, but a great opportunity to see our software perform outside the lab. Being out there also made me realize how, while small errors are part of testing on Earth, a similar mistake millions of kilometers away on Mars could mean the end of an entire mission. This makes Ingenuity’s success even more impressive.

Beyond the Lab

Of course, California itself was a whole other adventure. Pasadena quickly became home, even if finding a place to live wasn’t easy when wildfires swept through Los Angeles in January. Daily life was quite different to Switzerland with the car-centric culture, the long distances, and the contrasts of city life. Luckily, it was easy to settle in thanks to the people I met, especially the other interns and students from Caltech in the neighborhood. Together, we filled our weekends with road trips and new experiences: hiking through Joshua Tree, Zion, and Sequoia National Parks; catching sunsets and learning to surf in Malibu, sometimes accompanied by dolphins; exploring San Diego and San Francisco; and even flying to Hawaii. Standing on a surfboard in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by turtles, is a memory that will stay with me forever.

Reflections

Looking back, my time at JPL was as much about algorithms and drones as it was about people and places. I met brilliant engineers, many of whom had shaped historic missions, and shared adventures with interns from around the world. I learned that true engineering isn’t about complex solutions, but about making things simple, reliable and robust, especially when they need to work flawlessly millions of kilometers away. Most importantly, I left California hungry for more. More travel, more exploration, and more opportunities to work at the frontier of robotics and autonomy. Whether I continue in industry or one day pursue a PhD, one thing is clear: this internship confirmed that I love the blend of research, teamwork and experimentation that pushes technology and robotics forward.

Closing Thought

Back in Zurich, I’m grateful for how much this experience broadened my perspective: on technology and science, teamwork, and what it means to explore. The mindset I took from JPL stays with me every day, pushing me to keep learning, improving, and reaching further, not only in robotics, but also personally.