Perseverance Is Female
Women in Aerospace continue to make strides and reach for the stars
Since the dawn of time, humans have always looked to the sky in awe. Since there is so much about outer space that is unknown to us, over the years we’ve done our best to make sense of it. We name constellations. We create rich, powerful stories about the most interesting gods, people, and animals such as the ones found in Greek mythology.
Also, over time, we’ve learned celestial navigation. This has helped us tremendously in a number of ways. In the simplest terms, we know when to hunt, plant, harvest and gather.
Phoenicians are considered the first western civilization to have developed the art of navigation at sea between 1000 BCE and 600 BCE. Their superior navigation skills were due to their knowledge of astronomy. In particular, they understood that certain constellations are only visible in the Northern or Southern hemispheres. For example, the South Cross is only visible in the Southern hemisphere, while the Big Dipper can only be seen in the Northern hemisphere. The location of Polaris, the North Star, which sits above the northern hemisphere without moving too much, made her an excellent tool for navigation.
Fast forward to the modern age, we’re still looking up at the sky in wonder. NASA and other modern space agencies still use celestial navigation systems to guide their missions outside the Earth’s atmosphere. A variation of the celestial navigation system helped to chart Apollo spacecraft in its voyage to and from the moon; space missions such as Mars Explorations Rovers used star trackers to determine the orientation of the spacecraft with respect to the Sun, the Earth, Mars, or any particular directions.
Most importantly, we continue to question if life can be sustainable on another planet. NASA is on a journey to send people to Mars by 2030. In the past years, NASA sent orbiters and rovers to Mars increasing our knowledge of the planet.
Most recently, on February 18, 2021, the Mars Perseverance rover completed its nearly 370,000 million mile (400,000 million Km) journey to Mars and touched the soil of the Red Planet after the delicate phases of entry, descent, and landing. The Perseverance mission captured amazing footage of Mars during its rover landing. Lori Glaze, NASA Planetary Science Director said, “Perseverance sets a new bar for our ambitions at Mars. We will get closer than ever before to answering some of science’s longest-standing questions about the Red Planet, including whether life ever arose there.”
Watching the live event was exciting. Equally exciting was the diversity of NASA that was on display. Dr. Swati Mohan is the guidance, navigation, and controls operations lead of the mission. Dr. Mohan has been with NASA since 2010 and has worked on several other missions, such as Cassini and GRAIL to Saturn and the Moon respectively. Dr. Mohan is one of seven women who played prominent roles in the mission including Dr. Kathryn Stack Morgan, Dr. Moogega Stricker, and Diana Trujillo.
Dr. Stack Morgan worked as the deputy research scientist for the 2020 Mars rover mission. She has been with Nasa since 2012. For the Perseverance mission, her primary focus was on the Martian sedimentary rock record, using orbiter and rover image data to understand the evolution of ancient surface processes on Mars. She received several awards such as Forbes 30 under 30 in Science and Healthcare (2013), NASA Software of the Year Award (2018), and many others.
Dr. Stricker is NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Planetary Protection lead for Perseverance and has been working with NASA for 11 years. She is responsible for ensuring that the rover and its instruments are as clean as possible to avoid contamination because scientists will look for signs of microbial life on the Martian soils. Dr. Moogega develops plasma sterilization methodologies and additional sterilization capabilities for future missions. She is the recipient of several awards, such as Drexel University 40 under 40 awards (2015) and the NASA Group Achievement Award.
Diana Trujillo is a Colombian aerospace engineer who leads the team responsible for the robotic arm of Perseverance. She joined NASA in 2007 and served several roles, including Surface Sampling System Activity Lead and Dust Removal Tool Lead Systems Engineer. She was responsible for the Curiosity Rover maintaining operational safety and performing its science work dust-free. She developed a dust removal tool in six months, which brushes the dust from the surface of Mars, allowing scientists to investigate the surface below. Trujillo was also a telecom systems engineer for the Curiosity rover, responsible for the communication between the spacecraft and Earth. She hosted the first-ever Spanish-language NASA transmission of a planetary landing, for the Perseverance rover landing on Mars. Trujillo immigrated to the U.S. when she was seventeen-year-old with only $300 in her pocket. She cleaned homes to pay for her education at the University of Florida. In 2018, Trujillo was awarded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Bruce Murray Award for Excellence in Education and Public Engagement.
The diversity at NASA or within the field of STEM that we have today wasn’t always like this. Women have had to push their way through doors and break down the barriers that they’ve faced. The 2016 movie Hidden Figures shed light on the struggles and strides of women at NASA in the 1950s and ’60s, such as Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. These women and their accomplishments are incredible, which is why the name of NASA’s most recent mission Perseverance is perfect.
Let’s remember to celebrate, embrace, and support all the women and girls in our lives and in the workplace not just today because it’s International Women’s Day, but every day.
We, at PML, deeply value the guidance, work, and sheer brilliance of our women partners, founders, and advisors. They help all of us lean into the unknown, push the boundaries of investment and technology that shape the future of billions of lives. As the adage goes, “the future is female.”
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
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