Jim Montgomery photo

Jim Montgomery, a systems engineer who helps operate the NASA rover Perseverance on its Mars mission, is shown at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he has worked for 20 years. Montgomery graduated from South Haven High School in 1982.

 Photo provided / Jim Montgomery

SOUTH HAVEN — When the Mars rover Perseverance landed on the red planet on Feb. 18, people viewing on TV may have assumed engineers and scientists gathered in NASA’s control room were the only ones involved with the project.

Not so. It has taken an international team of thousands of engineers and scientists from around the world almost a decade of effort to help create and operate NASA’s newest rover. One member of the team is South Haven native Jim Montgomery.