You Need To Know: The Indian-American Aerospace Engineer Swati Mohan Shares His Vision

Speaking to IBNS and CtoI, the Indian-American scientist stated, “I hope that there will be more possibilities and opportunities for NASA and ISRO to collaborate in the future.”
She praised ISRO’s recent space achievements, including the success of Chandrarayaan 3.

Last year, India’s lunar mission, Chandrayaan 3, successfully soft-landed on the Moon’s South Pole.

NISAR

She mentioned the NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite project, which is a collaboration between NASA and ISRO and is expected to launch this year.

“It is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the two organisations,” the spokesperson said.
According to the official NISAR website, it is a NASA-ISRO joint Earth-observing mission aimed at measuring the causes and consequences of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging on a global scale.

Swati Mohan expressed her satisfaction with the success of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance during an interaction with students at Kolkata’s iconic Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, which was held in conjunction with the United States Consulate General Kolkata.

“I spent eight years as the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems engineer. It was the longest period of my life in which I worked solely on a single mission. “I felt satisfied after witnessing the mission’s success,” she said.

Mohan revealed that she is a ‘fan’ of the Star Trek television series, and over 200 students in the auditorium listened to her journey from aspiring doctor to engineer.

She encouraged students to never ‘give up’ on their path to pursuing their passion.
Swati Mohan travelled to the United States from India when she was a year old.

She has worked on a number of missions, including Cassini’s (a mission to Saturn) and GRAIL’s (a pair of spacecrafts flown in formation to the moon).

Gaganyaan

The aerospace engineer is visiting India at a time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently revealed the names of the four pilots training for the country’s first human space flight mission, ‘Gaganyaan’.

Astronaut-designates include Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla.