'Touchdown confirmed': Indian-American scientist helps NASA land rover on Mars

Washington, February 19

As Perseverance, the NASA rover, landed on the Martian surface Friday, millions of miles away in the US space agency’s control room, a woman’s voice rang out: “Touchdown confirmed!”         

The announcement was from Indian-American scientist Swati Mohan who leads the guidance, navigation, and control operations of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. In her role as flight controller, Mohan played a pivotal role in the landing of the historic craft.

Mohan was the first to confirm that the rover had successfully touched down on the Martian surface after surviving a particularly tricky plunge through the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life,” Mohan announced, prompting her colleagues at NASA to fist-bump and break into celebrations.

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Mohan, who emigrated from India to the US when she was only a year old, said the Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Operations (GN&C) are the “eyes and ears” of the spacecraft.

Commenting on her team’s role in the current mission, Mohan said their job during the cruise phase heading towards Mars was to figure out how the spacecraft is oriented, and make sure it is pointed correctly in space—“solar arrays to sun, antenna to Earth, and maneuver the spacecraft to get it where we want to go”, she is quoted as saying in her bio page on the NASA website.

There were “seven minutes of terror” leading to the entry, descent, and landing on Mars, she said. GN&C determines the position of the spacecraft and commands the manoeuvers to help it land safely.

Congratulations to @DrSwatiMohan, Guidance, Navigations and Control Operations Lead for @NASAPersevere.

Proud moment for India and the world.

Thrilled to see @NASAJPL and its scientists break new frontiers in science and expand our scope of knowledge. pic.twitter.com/XuqGq0BsZ8

— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) February 19, 2021

“As the team’s operations lead, I am the primary point of communication between the GN&C subsystem and the rest of the project.

“I am responsible for the training of the GN&C team, scheduling the mission control staffing for GN&C, as well as the policies/procedures the GN&C uses in the mission control room,” Mohan noted.

Raised in the Northern Virginia-Washington DC metro area, she completed her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and her M.S. and Ph.D from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics/Astronautics. It’s not clear how old she is.

Over the course of her career with NASA, Mohan has worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn and GRAIL, a pair of formation flown spacecraft to the Moon, and has been a mainstay with the Mars 2020 mission since its beginning in 2013.

Meet the scientist who talked us all through the landing expertly and said those magic words "touchdown confirmed" @DrSwatiMohan 🎉🎉#CountdownToMars #Perseverance pic.twitter.com/TZA3B5MFg0

— Medlife Crisis (Rohin) (@MedCrisis) February 18, 2021

Mohan said she got interested in space after watching the popular TV show “Star Trek” when she was nine.

“Seeing the beautiful depictions of the new regions of the universe that they were exploring. I remember thinking ‘I want to do that. 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,” she had told NASA.

Mohan said her passion for space increased further when she took her first physics class at the age of 16.

“I was lucky enough to have a great teacher, and everything was so understandable and easy. That was when I really considered engineering, as a way to pursue space,” she added. PTI

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