Landing the Perseverance rover on Mars, working in clean rooms to minimize the microbial bug count, and slogging through hundreds of engineering trade-offs with Swati Mohan, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. What are the "seven minutes of terror"? And is there evidence of past life on Mars?

LINKS & REFERENCES:

• Watch Swati voice the landing of Perseverance in 2021.
• Swati's official NASA bio
• More about the Perseverance rover

Swati Mohan spoke with us in a personal capacity. The views expressed in this episode are her own and do not represent the views of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or any other organization.

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