Meet Swati Mohan, an Indian-American scientist who led charge to land NASA rover on Mars

New Delhi, Feb 19: When National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed its Mars rover Perseverance on the Martian surface, it was an Indian-American that was handling the controls and landing system. Swati Mohan spearheaded the attitude control and landing system of the Perseverance rover that navigated a particularly difficult touchdown.

As the US made the historic landing on Mars, flight controller Swati Mohan announced "Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life," prompting her colleagues at NASA fist-bump and break into celebrations.

The NASA Perseverance rover successfully touched down on the surface of Mars after surviving a blazing seven-minute plunge through the Martian atmosphere.

It can be seen that Swati Mohan has been associated with the Perseverance Mars mission since its inception and has been working on the project for over seven years. She also worked on NASA's Cassini mission to the Saturn.

As the world watched Perseverance make a dramatic and difficult landing on the Martian surface, the Indian-American Swati Mohan steered through the operations in her calm and composed self. She communicated and coordinating between the GN and C subsystem and others teams of the milestone project.

Swati Mohan had moved to America when she was just a year old. While growing up, she spent her childhood in the Northern Virginia-Washington DC metro area.

At the age of 9, after having watched "Star Trek" for the first time, she was quite astounded by the beautiful depictions of the new regions of the universe that they were exploring, reported ANI. She had immediately realised that she wanted to do that and "find new and beautiful places in the universe".

The Nasa rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet on Friday, sending cheers across the world. It took a tension-filled 11 1/2 minutes for the signal to reach Earth.