An Aerospace Engineer
From What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath by Dan Heath
April 7, 2026 · 37 min · Season 1 · Episode 68
About this episode
Swati Mohan discusses her role in landing the Perseverance rover on Mars and the engineering challenges faced during the mission.
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 bioMore about the Perseverance roverSwati Mohan spoke with us in a personal capa...
People in this episode
Host: Dan Heath
Guest: Swati Mohan
Topics covered
- aerospace engineering
- Mars exploration
- NASA
- engineering challenges
- clean room technology
Keywords
- Perseverance rover
- Mars
- Swati Mohan
- NASA
- engineering trade-offs
- clean rooms
- seven minutes of terror
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Products: Perseverance rover
More episodes of What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath
- (Bonus) From StoryCorps: "Sideliners" · June 9, 2026 · 17 min
- A Clinical Ethicist · June 2, 2026 · 40 min
- A Correctional Officer · May 19, 2026 · 35 min
- A Custom Harvester · May 5, 2026 · 36 min
- A Funeral Director · April 21, 2026 · 37 min
- A Diplomat · March 24, 2026 · 35 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath podcast page.