PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Håvard Fjær Grip

Also known as Håvard Grip

Håvard Fjær Grip is a Norwegian cybernetics engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory whose flight control work let a robot helicopter fly on its own on Mars. Trained in engineering cybernetics at NTNU, where he earned a PhD in 2010, he worked on car safety estimation at SINTEF and on network synchronization at Washington State University before joining JPL in 2013. There he led guidance, navigation and control for the Mars Helicopter, and on April 19, 2021, as chief pilot, he flew Ingenuity's first flight, the first helicopter flight beyond Earth. By 2023 he was chief engineer of autonomy and aerial flight for the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters. He continues at JPL, where his 2026 work tests high-solidity rotors for future Mars explorers.

Timeline

  1. 2001–2010

    Engineering cybernetics at NTNU

    A native of Trøndelag, he earns a master's degree in 2006 and a PhD in 2010 in engineering cybernetics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he is a doctoral research fellow in the Department of Engineering Cybernetics. He is recognized for the best master's thesis in Norway in 2006 in control and automation, and his 2010 doctoral thesis is titled Topics in State and Parameter Estimation for Nonlinear and Uncertain Systems.

  2. 2007–2008

    Car safety research at SINTEF

    His master's thesis, Nonlinear Vehicle Velocity Observer with Road-Tire Friction Adaptation, targets real-time estimation for car safety systems such as anti-lock brakes. As a scientific researcher at SINTEF ICT, Applied Cybernetics, he carries out a contract project for Daimler Group Research & Advanced Engineering from 2007 to 2008, continuing his research on anti-collision systems for cars.

  3. 2010–2012

    Postdoc at Washington State

    In 2010 he joins the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University as a postdoctoral research associate and an adjunct assistant professor. From 2010 to 2012 he runs an independent research project there, funded by a personal postdoctoral grant from the Research Council of Norway. In 2012 he publishes "Output synchronization for heterogeneous networks of non-introspective agents" in Automatica.

  4. 2013–2019

    Flight control for the Mars Helicopter

    He joins JPL in 2013 as a research technologist in the Robotic Controls and Estimation Group and goes on to lead the Mars Helicopter's guidance, navigation and control team, designing the algorithms and software that guide Ingenuity. He also leads development of the helicopter's aerodynamics and flight control system, and in January 2019 he is first author of "Flight Control System for NASA's Mars Helicopter" at the AIAA SciTech Forum.

  5. 2020–2021

    Ingenuity's chief pilot

    In July 2020, ahead of launch, he is set to fly Ingenuity from Earth, with his team steering it through artificial intelligence and command sequences because of the distance to Mars. By April 2021 he holds the title of Ingenuity chief pilot and has led the development of its navigation and flight control systems, tested in a JPL helicopter simulation built on the DARTS/DSHELL framework. The helicopter flies fully autonomously, since the time delay to Mars makes manual control impossible.

  6. 2021–2022

    First flight on another world

    On April 19, 2021, he flies Ingenuity for 39.1 seconds, lifting it about 3 meters and turning it 96 degrees in the first helicopter flight beyond Earth, and records the flight in the project's Nominal Pilot's Logbook for Planets and Moons. He plans every maneuver on the ground and uplinks the instructions to the helicopter. By April 2022, Ingenuity, sent to make at most five flights, has flown 25 times.

  7. 2023

    Chief engineer for sample recovery

    After serving as chief pilot for Ingenuity's first 37 flights, he is JPL's chief engineer of autonomy and aerial flight for the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters, part of the joint NASA–ESA Mars Sample Return campaign. At the American Astronautical Society's Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference in 2023, he outlines how Ingenuity's guidance, navigation and control system would be adapted and extended for these helicopters. In October 2023 he gives a keynote on Ingenuity at the European Data Handling & Data Processing Conference.

  8. 2024–2026

    Rotors for future Mars explorers

    After Ingenuity's final flight, Flight 72, in January 2024, he explains the team's most likely cause of the mission-ending accident: a lack of surface texture gave the navigation system too little information. In May 2026, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he coauthors a Vertical Flight Society forum presentation with NASA Ames and AeroVironment colleagues on a high-solidity rotor test campaign in JPL's 25-foot Space Simulator, aimed at raising the lift of future Mars explorers.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

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  1. Håvard Fjær Grip - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. JPL Robotics: Håvard Grip www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Nordmann skal styre det første flygende fartøyet på Mars forskning.no. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Ingenuity’s Chief Pilot Explains How to Fly a Helicopter on Mars - IEEE Spectrum spectrum.ieee.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Pilot Logs First Flight on Another World - NASA Science science.nasa.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Here’s how NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has spent 1 year on Mars sciencenews.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. EDHPC 2023 - European Data Handling & Data Processing Conference (2-6 October 2023): JPL Ingenuity Mars Helicopter indico.esa.int. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. NASA sets sights on a next-generation Mars helicopter | Space space.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. NASA report on Ingenuity rotorcraft’s failure on Mars - Uncrewed Systems uncrewed-systems.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. F-0082-2026-0333: Performance Analysis and Data Processing for the High Solidity Test Campaign in the Jet Propulsion Lab 25-ft Space Simulator (Presentation Only) - Technical Paper saemobilus.sae.org. Checked 19 October 2026.