Swati Mohan is an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a research and development center that is based in Pasadena, California, and managed by the California Institute of Technology. Since 2013, she has been significantly involved in the Mars 2020 mission. A large part of this mission has entailed dispatching both the rover (motor vehicle) Perseverance and coaxial helicopter Ingenuity to Mars to search for possible signs of microbial life there. One of the aims of Mars 2020 is to collect samples and data that might eventually be used to help prepare for human flights to the Red Planet.
Mohan was born in Bengaluru, the capital and largest city of the state of Karnataka in southern India. She and her family immigrated to the United States when she was only a year old. Mohan grew up in the Washington, D.C., area.
Mohan acquired her enthusiasm for outer space early on in life. She credits the episodes of the TV series Star Trek that she watched in elementary school as an especially strong influence. “I remember thinking ‘I want to do that,’” Mohan later recalled. “I want to find new and beautiful places in the universe. The vastness of space holds so much knowledge that we have only begun to learn.”
Another formative experience for Mohan involved a physics class that she took when she was 16. This class convinced her to study engineering as the means for pursuing a career in space exploration. Mohan’s subsequent academic accomplishments included earning a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University; and a Ph.D. in aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As the Guidance & Controls Operations Lead for Mars 2020, Mohan achieved international fame as the person at the JPL Control Center who closely monitored the descent of Perseverance onto the surface of Mars and served as narrator of that nail-biter of a process on February 18, 2021. After she verified that car-sized rover’s successful landing with the announcement “Touchdown is confirmed,” just about everyone else in the control center erupted in applause.
During her interview at that time with the Indian news website The Quint, Mohan offered advice to younger people about the need to pursue their own dreams. “Follow your passion, try to learn more about what excites you,” she stated. “Keep learning and exploring.”
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Swati Mohan, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swati_Mohan
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