In this Oct. 1, 2012 photo provided by Daniel Scharf via the Rockford Register Star, senior engineer Dan Scharf, 39, poses in his office at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Scharf, a 1991 graduate of Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford, Ill., was in charge of the guidance, navigation and control for the backup landing system of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the Curiosity rover that recently landed on Mars. That backup system would have taken over steering for the spacecraft to hit its landing target, if there had been any problems with the primary landing system. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Daniel Scharf via the Rockford Register Star) MANDATORY CREDIT
