By the time the second group of NASA astronauts reach the Moon later this decade, the space agency would like to have a lunar rover waiting for them. But as the space agency nears a key selection, some government officials are seeking an insurance policy of sorts to increase the program’s chance of success.
At issue is the agency’s “Lunar Terrain Vehicle” (LTV) contract. In April 2024, the space agency awarded a few tens of millions of dollars to three companies—Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Astrolab—to complete preliminary design work on vehicle concepts. NASA then planned to down-select to one company to construct one or more rovers, land on the Moon, and provide rover services for a decade beginning in 2029. Over the lifetime of the fixed-price services contract, there was a combined maximum potential value of $4.6 billion.
The companies have since completed their design work, including the construction of prototypes, and submitted their final bids for the much larger services contract in August. According to two sources, NASA has since been weighing those bids and is prepared to announce a final selection before the end of this month.
— Expedia Group appointed Xavier Amatriain as its first chief artificial intelligence officer and data officer. He joins the Seattle-based travel giant from Google where he served as vice president of product in AI and Compute Enablement. Other past employers include Quora, LinkedIn and Netflix.
“[Amatriain’s] deep expertise in building large-scale AI platforms will help redefine how people experience travel,” Expedia CTO Ramana Thumu said in a statement. “Expedia Group operates at a scale few can match, and we invest deeply in our talent, giving technologists the space to learn, experiment, and push the boundaries of what AI can do.”
Amatriain, based in San Jose, Calif., has mapped a diverse career path — he’s been a university professor in Spain, a healthcare startup co-founder, a researcher, and an engineering leader.
Textio co-founder and former CEO Kieran Snyder. (Photo courtesy of Kieran Snyder)
— Textio co-founder and former CEO Kieran Snyder returned to Microsoft as vice president of AI transformation.
“My goal in this new role is to help Microsoft be the best living case study of effective, human AI transformation in the world,” Snyder said on LinkedIn.
Snyder began her tech career at Microsoft in 2004, working on the Bing search engine and Windows. In 2014, she launched Textio, which claims to be the first-to-market venture using AI for HR functions. The company’s software helps organizations recruit, hire and retain inclusive teams.
Over the past two years, Snyder ran a business called “nerd processor,” which offered research and leadership coaching, and served as chief scientist emeritus at Textio, where she is now on the board of directors.
— Ross Tennenbaum is leaving his role as president of Avalara for a new role with an unnamed public company, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. Tennenbaum joined the tax software giant in 2019 and was previously CFO. He worked at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse before joining Avalara, which relocated its headquarters from Seattle to North Carolina following its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in 2022. It filed to go public, again, earlier this year.
Janice Kapner. (LinkedIn Photo)
— After more than 12 years at T-Mobile, Janice Kapner is leaving the telecommunications giant. Kapner was chief communications and corporate responsibility officer and executive VP at the Bellevue, Wash., company where she led a team of more than 160 employees.
“From Magenta sneakers and confetti cannons to competitive stunts, big bets, and a front-line team that made the brand burst off the page and into the world — these are moments I’ll never forget,” Kapner said on LinkedIn. “They shaped me as much as I helped shape them.”
Prior to T-Mobile, Kapner was at Microsoft for more than a decade.
Vinita Ananth. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Former Microsoft and Amazon leader Vinita Ananth is now senior director of product for the cloud company Nebius. Ananth, based in the Seattle area, has been working since July on stealth-mode startups HelpViber and FulcrumAX. Ananth called the decision to leave these ventures “difficult and emotional.”
“I’m thrilled that my co-founder will continue driving both HelpViber and FulcrumAX forward, with a strategic focus on customer traction, platform maturity, and meaningful funding milestones over the coming year,” she said on LinkedIn, adding that she’ll continue in advisor and co-founder roles.
Bo English-Wiczling. (LinkedIn Photo)
— PayPal appointed Bo English-Wiczling as VP of global developer relations. English-Wiczling, based in Seattle, joins from Oracle, where she worked for nearly nine years in leadership roles in database product management and developer relations. Previous employers include Amazon and Best Buy.
“After an incredible journey working alongside talented engineers, community leaders, and innovation-minded partners, this new role feels like the perfect next step,” English-Wiczling said on LinkedIn. “I’ll be working at the intersection of PayPal’s global payments platform and developer ecosystems — helping build, grow, and energize the communities and relationships that power our future.”
— Jaimin Gandhijoined Seattle-based AI roleplay startup Yoodli as a product leader. Gandhi’s past roles include leadership positions at Nerdy, Binance, Uber, DocuSign, Microsoft and others.
Over the past year, Gandhi built FourPoint.AI, a tool that helps job seekers improve their communications. While he won’t be adding new features to FourPoint, “I am opening it up for free,” Gandhi said on LinkedIn. “If it helps someone land their next opportunity the way it helped me find mine, that is a meaningful way to pay it forward.”
— Kapil Hetamsaria is now chief business officer of Neo4j, a data analysis, graph intelligence platform. Hetamsaria joins from C3 AI, where he served as a vice president, and was previously co-founder and CEO of Viddl App, a Bellevue-based short-video platform.
— Dave Rosenbaum is leaving his role as senior publications manager at Seattle-based pet sitting company Rover to join Airbnb.
“I have always been a firm believer in the transformative power of travel — discovering new places, trying new foods, and having new experiences,” Rosenbaum wrote on LinkedIn. “Airbnb’s mission is central to this belief that the world offers limitless possibilities.”
Rosenbaum is also a deputy mayor and city council member for Mercer Island, a city east of Seattle, and previously served in legislative roles for members of Congress.
— Ambika Singh, founder and CEO of online clothing rental company Armoire, joined the board of trustees for the Seattle Metro Chamber.
— Pete Fewing, associate athletic director at Seattle University and longtime Sounders FC broadcaster, joined the board of directors for Starfire Sports. The organization provides coding classes, drone summer camps, and other free, after-school sports programming for underprivileged kids in South Seattle.
The Perseverance Mars rover has been making headlines lately as it sets up a sample depot on the red planet and makes its way toward an ancient river delta. But its predecessor is still on Mars, too, and Curiosity is making its own discoveries even after more than a decade. As it ascends Mount Sharp, Curiosity has stumbled upon a fascinating rock formation — ripples left in ancient sediment by the planet’s long-lost water.
Curiosity arrived on Mars in 2012 and has been so successful that NASA opted to use its design as the base for Perseverance. It landed in Gale Crater and began making its way to Mount Sharp, the central peak of the crater. The rover was outfitted with instruments to assess the climate and geology of Mars to assess whether the conditions in the crater may have been compatible with life. Understanding the role of water in the planet’s distant past is a major element of the mission.
Last year, Curiosity reached the sulfate-bearing unit of Mount Sharp. This salt-rich region is believed to contain deposits left as the planet began drying up. However, the team didn’t expect to find evidence of waves. The rover has sent back images of a rippling texture in the rock, which was once sediment at the bottom of a body of water. “This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity discovered the wave ripples about half a mile above the base of Mount Sharp in what has been termed the “Marker Band.” This layer of dark, hard rock stands out from the rest of the rusty landscape. The rock here is so hard that Curiosity has been unable to drill a sample of it. The team is still looking for an area with softer rock to get a sample for analysis. Unlike Perseverance, Curiosity is not outfitted with the hardware to save samples for a future return to Earth — it can only do science in its onboard laboratory. Curiosity will spend a little more time hunting for the right rocks in the Marker Band, but there are more discoveries awaiting higher on Mount Sharp.
The Curiosity team is looking ahead to a valley known as Gediz Vallis, which the rover could see from a distance at several points last year. NASA believes Gediz Vallis was carved by water, and there is evidence of wet landslides. This could be one of the youngest geological features on Mount Sharp. There is currently no planned end date for the Curiosity mission — it’ll keep rolling until its deformed, perforated wheels give out.
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