Mars offers best hope for human exploration: Bengaluru-born NASA engineer

NASA JPL aerospace engineer Swati Mohan said Mars is humanity's best bet for exploration beyond Earth due to its similar gravity, thin atmosphere, and chemical building blocks like carbon dioxide and water.

Mohan led the guidance, navigation, and controls on NASA’s Perseverance mission; she recalled commanding its landing in February 2021 felt dissociative, with relief only after the first Martian image was received.

The Perseverance rover has cached samples at Three Forks, including one from Cheyava Falls seen as a strong biosignature candidate.

The Ingenuity helicopter and the oxygen-generating Moxie experiment, which achieved over 99.9% purity, are key steps toward future human missions.

The next India-US Civil Space Joint Working Group meeting will be held in Bengaluru in early August.