.png)
"Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life," exclaimed NASA engineer Dr Swati Mohan.
Yesterday, we witnessed another historic event with NASA’s Perseverance Rover landing on Mars. There were several scientists who were involved in the mission, however one of the integral leads to the landing was another #womeninleadership with Indian-American Dr. Swati Mohan, who lead the attitude control system of Mars 2020 during operations.
Her twitter handle notes “Mars 2020 Guidance, Navigation & Control Operations Lead for @NASAPersevere”. Dr. Mohan led the attitude control system of Mars 2020 during operations. The attitude control system is responsible for pointing the rover in the direction it needs to be and helps determine where it is orientated in space.
In addition to the not-so-simple task of landing the rover, she is also the lead systems engineer throughout the development, acting as the key communicator between the GN&C subsystem and the rest of the project's teams. Her responsibility includes looking after the team, scheduling the mission control staffing for GN&C, and guiding the policies and procedures it uses in the mission control room.
Dr. Swati Mohan immigrated to the United States when she was one year old. She fell in love while watching Star Trek when she was nine years old. Her initial career choice was to become a pediatrician, however she switched direction at age 16 and decided to pursue her love of space exploration and decided to become an engineer, where she completed her B.S from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and her M.S. and Ph.D from MIT in Aeronautics/Astronautics..
Congratulations Dr. Mohan – everyone from young to old watched in amazement. Your contributions provide inspiration for young women of our future.
Source - https://mars.nasa.gov/people/profile/?id=22937 and Dr. Swati Mohan Twitter.