Touchdown confirmed: Indian-American scientist Swati Mohan played key role in NASA Mars rover landing PTI Updated : Feb 19, 2021, 7:23 pm IST As the team's operations lead, I am the primary point of communication between the GN&C subsystem and the rest of the project, said Mohan Indian-American scientist Swati Mohan (Twitter@ParveenKaswan) Washington: Indian-American scientist, Swati Mohan, who leads the guidance, navigation, and control operations of NASA's Mars 2020 mission played a pivotal role in landing the US space agency's historic Perseverance rover on the Martian surface on Friday. Mohan was also the first to confirm that the rover had sucessfully touched down on the Martian surface after surviving a particularly tricky plunge through the atmosphere of the Red Planet.