HOUSTON: Mars Rover’s “Most Exciting Work” In Coming Weeks: Indian-American Techie

HOUSTON: Vishnu Sridhar, a 27-year-old
Indian-American lead system engineer with NASA’s Perseverance rover, has said
that the most exciting work on the awe-inspiring Mars mission will happen in
the coming weeks.

Mr
Sridhar, who is from Queens, New York, is a lead system engineer at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California for SuperCam on the Mars
2020 Perseverance rover, which is on a mission to search for signs of past life
on the Red Planet.

He said
some of the rover’s most exciting work will be done in the coming weeks.

“We’re
going to be taking more images of Mars, we’re going to be shooting lasers with
the SuperCam instrument, we’re going to be recording audio with our microphone,
and eventually, soon in near future, we are going to deploy our helicopter, and
do the first powered flight on Mars,” Mr Sridhar told ABC7 channel.

SuperCam
is a remote-sensing instrument that will use laser spectroscopy to analyse the
chemical composition of rocks on the Martian surface. It analyses terrain that
the rover cannot reach. It is an instrument designed to scan rocks and
minerals-from up to 20 feet away-to determine their chemical makeup.

The
Perseverance rover was launched on July 30 last year and successfully landed on
Mars on February 18 this year. The rover, the SuperCam, and its other devices
together will help scientists search for clues of past life on Mars. Its
predecessor Curiosity is still functioning eight years after landing on Mars.
The two-year Perseverance mission is NASA’s latest and most advanced mission to
find evidence of past life on Mars.

Mr
Sridhar said it was important that the mission was happening despite the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“NASA
missions are clearly trying to explore and answer the basic question.
Perseverance is also trying to seek that, and eventually answer the question
that was there life on Mars, was there life outside Earth, and it was
definitely a tough period for us during COVID-19 and for everyone else around
the globe,” he said.

“And
that’s why I love the name of Perseverance because we persevered through the
pandemic and there was a paradigm shift, we learned a lot about how to do
engineering remotely. And we went through all that we learned and now we are successful
on Mars and it’s a great achievement for humankind,” he said.

Mr
Sridhar’s time at JPL over the past five years has been dedicated to Mars and
is currently the instrument engineer for SuperCam on the Mars 2020 Rover.

“Summer
2019 was when instruments came in from France and as been dedicated to Mars and
is currently the instrument engineer for SuperCam on the Los Alamos and when we
physically integrated SuperCam with the Perseverance rover. That’s something I
will cherish for the rest of my life, to have touched and worked on a piece of
hardware that’s on its way to Mars,” he reminisced.

The US
space agency on Monday released the first audio from Mars, a faint recording of
a gust of wind captured by the Perseverance rover. Perseverance will attempt to
collect 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes to be sent back to Earth
sometime in the 2030s for lab analysis.

The rover
is only the fifth to set its wheels down on Mars. The feat was first
accomplished in 1997, and all of them have been American. The US is aiming for
an eventual human mission to the planet, though planning remains preliminary.

Mr
Sridhar attended Aviation High School in Queens and grew up in Rego Park. He
graduated in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech and has always been
fascinated by flight and space exploration.

“One
of the key events that sparked my interest in space and exploration was
watching National Geographic. The Carl Sagan TV show Cosmos,” he said.

According
to his NASA profile page, while in elementary school he wanted to become a
National Geographic photographer and travel the world.

Indian-American
woman scientist Swati Mohan had also played a key role in NASA Mars rover
landing.

Ms Mohan,
who leads the guidance, navigation, and control operations of NASA’s Mars 2020
mission, was the first to confirm that the rover had successfully touched down
on the Martian surface.

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