“Hope that there will be more possibilities…”: Indian-American aerospace engineer Swati Mohan shares vision for NASA-ISRO collaboration

American aerospace engineer and NASA scientist Swati Mohan, who is thought for her management within the steerage, navigation, and management operations of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, on Thursday mentioned she is hopeful to see more collaboration between her organisation and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in future.

Speaking to IBNS, the Indian-American scientist mentioned: “I hope that there will be more potentialities and alternatives for NASA and ISRO to collaborate in future.”

She praised ISRO for the current achievements in its area programmes, together with the success of Chandrayaan 3.

India’s lunar mission, Chandrayaan 3, efficiently soft-landed on the South Polar area of the Moon final yr.

NISAR

She talked about the NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite tv for pc challenge which is witnessing a collaboration between NASA and ISRO and is slated to be launched this yr.

“It is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the 2 organisations,” she mentioned.

As per the official NISAR web site, it’s a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and ISRO, with the aim to make international measurements of the causes and penalties of land floor modifications utilizing superior radar imaging.

During her interplay with college students at Kolkata’s iconic Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, whereas attending a session which was held in affiliation with the United States Consulate General Kolkata, Swati Mohan mentioned witnessing the success of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance was a second of satisfaction for her.

“I labored for eight years because the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover steerage, navigation, and management (GNC) programs engineer. It was the longest interval of my life after I labored with my full concentrate on a single mission. Witnessing the second when the mission was profitable made me really feel glad,” she mentioned.

Mohan shared that she is a ‘fan’ of Star Trek TV collection, as over 200 college students current within the auditorium listened to her journey from an aspiring physician to turning into an engineer.

She requested college students to by no means ‘quit’ of their path of chasing their ardour.

Swati Mohan went to the USA from India when she was a yr outdated.

She has labored on a number of missions, resembling Cassini (mission to Saturn) and GRAIL (a pair of formation-flown spacecraft to the Moon).

Gaganyaan

The aerospace engineer is visiting India at a time when Indian PM Narendra Modi lately revealed the names of the 4 pilots who’re present process coaching for the nation’s first maiden human area flight mission ‘Gaganyaan’.

The astronaut-designates are Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla.