In a major performance, NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on the Martian surface after spending 7 months in space. During the said period, the vehicle crossed 472 million km at approximately 19000 km per hour. When the robber plunged into the atmosphere of Mars, it was an Indian-American scientist named Swati Mohan who confirmed the existence of the vehicle.
‘The spacecraft @NASAPersevere currently emits heartbeat tones – this tone indicates that perseverance is working normally. ”
Swati Mohan, @NASAJPL engineer in the Rover landing team, provides a status update on the # CountdownToMars: pic.twitter.com/D1Tx9BEYld
– NASA (@NASA) 18 February 2021
In her own words, Swati Mohan said: ‘I led the Mars 2020 mind control system during operations, and was the chief systems engineer during the development. The attitude control system shows the vehicle where it should be and helps to find out where the spacecraft is aimed in space. During the landing of the Mars Perseverance Rover, she commented on the entry, descent and landing from mission control.
According to the official NASA website, Swati Mohan’s family emigrated to the United States when she was just a year old. She spent her childhood in the Northern Virginia / Washington DC metro area before joining Cornell University in 2000 for Mechanical and Space Engineering. Following her undergraduate studies, Swati Mohan completed her MS and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics, Aerospace and Aerospace Engineering in 2010.
While working as a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory between 2004 and 2005, Swati Mohan enrolled for the PhD program at MIT in 2005. After completing her PhD, she rejoined NASA as an Engineer for guidance, navigation and control systems. She worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn and GRAIL. Swati Mohan has been on the Mars project since 2013.
Although the Indian-American scientist initially aspires to become a pediatrician, she ends up in NASA. She says: ‘I was always interested in space, but I did not really know about opportunities to turn the interest into a job. When I was 16, I took my first physics class. I was lucky enough to have a wonderful teacher, and everything was so understandable and easy. That was when I really considered engineering as a way to practice space. ‘
While talking about her journey, she said: ‘I remember watching my first episode of’ Star Trek ‘at the age of 9, and seeing the beautiful depictions of the new regions of the universe. I remember thinking, “I want to do this. I want to find new and beautiful places in the universe. The large space contains so much knowledge that we have only just begun to learn.
Swati Mohan added that she is the main point of communication between the subsystem Guidance, Navigation and Controls (GN&C) and the rest of the Mars project. She is also involved in training the team, outlining the policies and procedures for the GN&C team and planning the mission control staff. “The GN&C subsystem is” eyes and ears “of the spacecraft … GN&C determines the position of the spacecraft during entry, descent and landing on Mars and commands the maneuvers to land it safely.”