Swati Mohan

Swati Mohan is an Indian-American aerospace engineer and was the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 mission.[1][2][3]

Swati Mohan
Swati Mohan
EducationCornell University (B.S.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S., Ph.D.)
Known forWork on the Mars 2020 mission
Scientific career
InstitutionsNASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ThesisQuantitative Selection and Design of Model Generation Architectures for On-Orbit Autonomous Assembly (2010)
Doctoral advisorDave Miller

Early life and education

Mohan was born in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, and emigrated to the United States when she was one year old.[4][5][6][7] She became interested in space upon seeing Star Trek at age 9.[8] She had originally planned to be a pediatrician but at the age of 16 took a physics class and decided to study engineering as a way to pursue a career in space exploration.[9][8] She studied Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, before completing her master's degree and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[4][10][11]

She researched on-orbit operations in the Space Systems Laboratory (MIT) with Professor Dave Miller. She worked with the Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellite (SPHERES),[12] SWARM, and ALMOST testbeds. With SPHERES, she had multiple tests performed on the International Space Station (ISS), including some by fellow MIT alumni astronauts Dan Tani[13] and Greg Chamitoff.[14] She also worked on the SPHERES Zero Robotics competition for middle and high school students.

At MIT, she was involved in the Graduate Student Council, Sidney-Pacific Residence Hall (including Sidney-Pacific Intercultural Exchange (SPICE)),[15] and Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (GA^3) student organizations.[16]

Work at NASA
Mohan studies monitors in mission control on 18 February 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California[17]

Mohan works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and is the Guidance & Controls Operations Lead for the Mars 2020 mission.[1] Mohan joined the Mars 2020 team in 2013, shortly after the team was assembled.[18][19] In her role, she was responsible for ensuring the spacecraft that carries the rover was properly oriented during its travel to Mars and when landing on the planet's surface.[18][11][20] She narrated the landing events from inside mission control as the Perseverance rover landed on Mars on 18 February 2021.[1] She announced "Touchdown is confirmed," after which the JPL Mission Control Center erupted in celebration, clapping and fist bumping (socially distant due to COVID-19).[21]

Mohan explained the navigation system during the landing: "Perseverance will be the first mission to use Terrain-Relative Navigation. While it’s descending on the parachute, it will actually be taking images of the surface of Mars and determining where to go based on what it sees. This is finally like landing with your eyes open — having this new technology really allows Perseverance to land in much more challenging terrain than Curiosity, or any previous Mars mission, could."[22]

Previously, she had worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn,[9][18] and GRAIL, a pair of small spacecraft which mapped the gravitational field of the Moon.[9]

Selected publications
  • Babuscia, Alessandra; Van de Loo, Mark; Wei, Quantum J.; Pan, Serena; Mohan, Swati; Seager, Sara (2014). "Inflatable antenna for cubesat: fabrication, deployment and results of experimental tests". 2014 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT: IEEE: 1–12.[23]
  • Mohan, Swati; Miller, David (18 August 2008). "SPHERES Reconfigurable Control Allocation for Autonomous Assembly". AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and Exhibit. Honolulu, Hawaii: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.[24]
  • Scharf, Daniel P.; Regehr, Martin W.; Vaughan, Geoffery M.; Benito, Joel; Ansari, Homayoon; Aung, MiMi; Johnson, Andrew; Casoliva, Jordi; Mohan, Swati; Dueri, Daniel; Acikmese, Behcet (2014-03). "ADAPT demonstrations of onboard large-divert Guidance with a VTVL rocket". 2014 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, USA: IEEE: 1–18.[25]
  • Mohan, Swati; Miller, David (10 August 2009). "SPHERES Reconfigurable Framework and Control System Design for Autonomous Assembly". AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference. Chicago, Illinois: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.[26]
  • Mohan, Swati; Miller, David W. (2014-09). "Dynamic Control Model Calculation: A Model Generation Architecture for Autonomous On-Orbit Assembly". Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. 51 (5): 1430–1453.[27]

Family

Mohan is married to Santhosh Nadipuram, a pediatric infectious disease physician and research scientist at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and clinical instructor in pediatric infectious disease at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Mohan and Nadipuram have two daughters, one of whom was born after Mohan began working on the Mars 2020 project in 2013.[28][8]

References
  1. "Meet the Martians: Swati Mohan". Mars Exploration Program. NASA. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  2. "Meet Dr Swati Mohan, Indian-American Behind NASA's Perseverance Rover Landing On Mars". thelogicalindian.com. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  3. "'Touchdown confirmed': Swati Mohan '04 called Mars landing". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  4. "Swati Mohan". Mars Exploration Program. NASA. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  5. "Nasa Perseverance mission to leave Indian footprint on Mars". Times of India. 30 July 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  6. "I Am Indian As Much As I Am American, Says NASA Scientist Swati Mohan". Moneycontrol. 24 February 2021. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  7. Gourtsilidou, Maria (5 June 2021). "Profile- Swati Mohan: Who is the woman behind the landing of NASA's "Perseverance" on Mars". CEOWORLD magazine. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  8. "The face of the Perseverance landing was an Indian American woman". CNN. 19 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  9. Dogra, Sarthak (18 February 2021). "Meet Dr Swati Mohan, In Charge Of Landing NASA Perseverance Rover On Mars". India Times. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  10. Mohan, Swati (2010). Quantative selection and design of model generation architectures for on-orbit autonomous assembly (Thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/59664. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  11. Khanna, Monit (18 February 2021). "Dr Swati Mohan Has Made Us Proud: Spent 8 Years On NASA Perseverance Mars Landing". India Times. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  12. "Mini MIT satellites rocketing to space station". MIT News. MIT. 25 April 2006. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  13. "Down to earth: Alumnus Tani returns from space station". MIT News. MIT. 22 February 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  14. "MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department enews Vol 4, #4 February 2008". MIT Aero Astro. MIT. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  15. "Sidney-Pacific Inter-Cultural Exchange (SPICE)". Sidney-Pacific. MIT. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  16. "History". Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (GA3). MIT. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  17. "Keeping Track of Mars Perseverance Landing". NASA Science Mars Exploration Program. NASA JPL. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  18. Mack, Eric (18 February 2021). "Meet NASA's Swati Mohan, a star of the Perseverance rover's landing on Mars". CNET. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  19. Kapur-Gomes, Suruchi (23 August 2020). "Swati Mohan: The Cosmic Genius". Sunday Guardian Live. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  20. "7 Minutes to Mars: NASA's Perseverance Rover Attempts Most Dangerous Landing Yet". Mars. NASA JPL. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  21. "Touchdown! NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover Safely Lands on Red Planet". Mars News. NASA JPL. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  22. Wall, Mike (16 February 2021). "A new 7 minutes of terror: See the nail-biting Mars landing stages of NASA's Perseverance rover in this video". Space.com. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  23. Babuscia, Alessandra; Van de Loo, Mark; Wei, Quantum J.; Pan, Serena; Mohan, Swati; Seager, Sara (2014). "Inflatable antenna for cubesat: Fabrication, deployment and results of experimental tests". 2014 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT: IEEE. pp. 1–12. doi:10.1109/AERO.2014.7024296. ISBN 978-1-4799-1622-1. S2CID 2933927. Archived from the original on 2 June 2018. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  24. Mohan, Swati; Miller, David (18 August 2008). "SPHERES Reconfigurable Control Allocation for Autonomous Assembly". AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and Exhibit. Guidance, Navigation, and Control and Co-located Conferences. Honolulu, Hawaii: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. doi:10.2514/6.2008-7468. ISBN 978-1-60086-999-0.
  25. Scharf, Daniel P.; Regehr, Martin W.; Vaughan, Geoffery M.; Benito, Joel; Ansari, Homayoon; Aung, MiMi; Johnson, Andrew; Casoliva, Jordi; Mohan, Swati; Dueri, Daniel; Acikmese, Behcet (2014). "ADAPT demonstrations of onboard large-divert Guidance with a VTVL rocket". 2014 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, USA: IEEE. pp. 1–18. doi:10.1109/AERO.2014.6836462. ISBN 978-1-4799-1622-1. S2CID 21512639. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  26. Mohan, Swati; Miller, David (10 August 2009). "SPHERES Reconfigurable Framework and Control System Design for Autonomous Assembly". AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference. Guidance, Navigation, and Control and Co-located Conferences. Chicago, Illinois: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. doi:10.2514/6.2009-5978. hdl:1721.1/82064. ISBN 978-1-60086-978-5.
  27. Mohan, Swati; Miller, David W. (2014). "Dynamic Control Model Calculation: A Model Generation Architecture for Autonomous On-Orbit Assembly". Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. 51 (5): 1430–1453. Bibcode:2014JSpRo..51.1430M. doi:10.2514/1.A32581. ISSN 0022-4650.
  28. "For Mars rover workers, years of work comes down to a few nail-biting moments". Florida Today. USA Today. 18 February 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
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