CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Clarksburg native was part of the NASA team that helped put a robot on Mars.

Steven Mikes is a senior engineer with the avionics and flight systems of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Valencia, Calif. He helped design the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars on Monday.

The Charleston Daily Mail (http://bit.ly/S4uuKq) reports Mikes started working at the laboratory in October 1989, just a few months after he graduated from West Virginia University.

Mikes was part of a team that built the software for all three parts of Curiosity's voyage. Now he's working with others to test changes to the rover's software.

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Information from: Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com