{"id":27466,"date":"2021-02-24T18:39:21","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T23:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianeagle.com\/travelbeats\/?p=27466"},"modified":"2021-02-24T19:11:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T00:11:56","slug":"vandana-vandi-verma-nasa-mars-rovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indianeagle.com\/travelbeats\/vandana-vandi-verma-nasa-mars-rovers\/","title":{"rendered":"Other than Dr. Swati Mohan, Indian-origin Vandana Verma Drove NASA\u2019s Perseverance to Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

It won\u2019t be unjust or exaggerated to describe 2021 as the Year of Indian-origin women.<\/strong> From taking the lead in international politics to piloting Air India\u2019s first and longest SFO-Bangalore flight over North Pole<\/a><\/span> to steering the NASA Mars 2020 mission \u2013 Indian-origin women are defining 2021 as the year of their remarkable achievements. The moment NASA\u2019s Perseverance Rover landed successfully on Mars and Dr. Swati Mohan announced, \u201cTouchdown is confirmed,\u201d the world went gaga over the Indian American aerospace engineer\u2019s exceptional caliber, Indian roots, and bindi<\/em> on the forehead.<\/p>\n

Other than Dr. Swati Mohan who is in the spotlight of global media for being a poster girl of the NASA Mars 2020 mission, Dr. Vandana Verma \u2013 the Chief Engineer for Robotics Operations for NASA\u2019s Perseverance Rover \u2013 deserves a special mention. A space roboticist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Vandana \u2018Vandi\u2019 Verma is a leading member of the team having architected NASA\u2019s passage to the Red Planet. From operating a tractor in a small Indian town to earning a pilot\u2019s license to driving NASA\u2019s Mars rovers, Dr. Verma has had an extraordinary journey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"NASA

Picture Credit: Yahoo.com | NASA\/AFP<\/p><\/div>\n

Daughter of a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force, she was born in Punjab and raised as an army kid.<\/strong> After having earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in electrical engineering from Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, Vandi Verma went on to study masters and pursue PhD in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, USA. Her involvement in a 3-year astrobiology experimental station in the Atacama Desert, where the landscape is a bit similar to the surface of Mars, during her academic pursuit at CMU became the foundation of her career in robotics, which started with her testing of robotics technology in such precarious environments as the Arctic and the Antarctic.<\/p>\n

On completion of her PhD in 2005, she joined Ames Research Center, a major NASA research facility in San Francisco<\/a><\/span>, as a research scientist.<\/strong> There was no looking back for her after that. In 2006, she co-wrote and developed PLEXIL, an open source programming language that is used in automation technologies of NASA\u2019s Mars rovers, including Curiosity and Perseverance. In 2007, she joined Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a federally funded NASA research and development center in California \u2013 which catapulted her career to a new high. In 2008, she was inducted into NASA\u2019s Mars rover team.<\/p>\n

Flying is next to her passion for robotics. Being an avid pilot, she operates private aircraft. She is also an advocate of STEM education for girls. She describes her work at NASA as \u201cone of the coolest jobs in the world.\u201d In order to drive robotic spacecraft to the Red Planet, \u201cWe tend to live by the Mars Clock and adjust our day to the Martian Day (a solar day on Mars) which is 24 hours 39 minutes 35 seconds,\u201d Dr. Vandana \u2018Vandi\u2019 Verma says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since 2008, India-born Dr. Verma has been part of NASA\u2019s Mars Exploration Rover projects. She operated three rovers \u2013 MER-A Spirit, MER-B Opportunity, and Mars Science Laboratory\u2019s Curiosity<\/strong> \u2013 prior to Perseverance for NASA\u2019s Mars 2020 mission. Apart from having a treasure trove of as many as eight NASA awards, she has a documentary film made by a Finnish director on her work on NASA\u2019s Mars rover Curiosity. In 2020, she appeared in the episode 6 of the US Air Force documentary titled Science in the Extremes (series 3) and gave a walk through her work on NASA\u2019s Mars rovers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It won\u2019t be unjust or exaggerated to describe 2021 as the Year of Indian-origin women. From taking the lead in international politics to piloting Air India\u2019s first and longest SFO-Bangalore flight over North Pole to steering the NASA Mars 2020 mission \u2013 Indian-origin women are defining 2021 as the year of their remarkable achievements. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[276],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Dr Vandi Verma who Drives Tractor, Flies Planes, Operates NASA Rovers to Mars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.indianeagle.com\/travelbeats\/vandana-vandi-verma-nasa-mars-rovers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Dr Vandi Verma who Drives Tractor, Flies Planes, Operates NASA Rovers to Mars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It won\u2019t be unjust or exaggerated to describe 2021 as the Year of Indian-origin women. 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