Vandi Verma, Chief Engineer at NASA’s JPL, is of Indian origin who is in discussion recently about running the Perseverance Rover on Mars.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars has begun the search for microscopic life on and below the surface of Mars. Indian-origin Vandi Verma is the Chief Engineer Robotic Operations at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When he conducted Perseverance, he was happy and said that Jazeero is fantastic. After launching in late July last year, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars’ Jaziro crater in February this year. Vandy has also driven NASA’s previous rover.
What will Perseverance do?
The Perseverance Rover is currently conducting its own exploration work at Jaziro Crater itself. NASA scientists have specially launched this rover to search for signs of ancient microorganisms on and below the surface of Mars. Apart from this, Perseverance will do many more experiments on Mars, in which it has done the Moxy experiment. In this, he made oxygen there using the carbon dioxide of Mars.
Who is Wandi Verma
Verma was born in Halwara, Punjab in India and grew up there. His father was a pilot in the Indian Air Force. After doing her PhD in robotics from Carnegie Millon University in the US, she has been driving a rover on Mars since 2008. He has also driven the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers before Perseverance.
Why is Vandi in discussion now?
Vandy has been in the news many times before. She also came into the limelight when the Perseverance rover reached Mars. But Perseverance had not yet started its major work on Mars. So far, NASA was engaged with the Ingenuity helicopter flights with the safety of Perseverance’s equipment, and the team was preparing to launch Persivience to search for microorganisms on the surface of Mars and beneath it. Now that this work has started, once again Vandy is in the headlines.
