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Holi
Austin South Asian | March 2021
NASA Indian American Engineer Swati Mohan: Operations Lead For Perseverance Rover Landing On Mars
Holi is a popular ancient Hindu festival, also known as the “festival of spring”, the “festival of colours”, and the “festival of love”. The festival signifies the triumph of good over evil. It originated and is predominantly celebrated in India, but has also spread to other regions of CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and Asia and parts of the Western world through the diaspora from the Indian subcontinent. Holi landed on the planet Feb. 18, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back celebrates the arrival of spring, the end of winter, the blossoming of love, and for many it’s a rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars, reported AP. festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships. Ground controllers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, The festival also celebrates the beginning of a good spring harvest season. It lasts for a night leaped to their feet, thrust their arms in the air and cheered in both triumph and relief on reand a day, starting on the evening of the Purnima falling in the Hindu calendar month of ceiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had touched down on the red planet, Phalguna, which falls around middle of March in the Gregorian calendar. The first evening long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft. is known as Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi and the following day as Holi, Rangwali Holi, Dhuleti, Dhulandi or Phagwah. “Now the amazing science starts,” a jubilant Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said at a news conference, after the rover successfully touched down on the surface of Holi celebrations start on the night before Holi with a Holika Dahan where people gather, Mars after surviving a blazing seven-minute plunge through the Martian atmosphere. perform religious rituals in front of the bonfire, and pray that their internal evil be destroyed the way Holika, the sister of the demon king Hiranyakashipu, was killed in the fire. Among the scientists who are part of this historic mission, Indian American Dr. Swati Mohan spearheaded the development of attitude control and the landing system for the rover, The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi (Dhuleti) – a free-for-all festival of colours, reported ANI. “Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars, ready where people smear each other with colours and drench each other. Water guns and water- to begin seeking the signs of past life,” exclaimed the NASA engineer. filled balloons are also used to play and colour each other. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children, and elders. Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the U.S. The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and The car-size, plutonium-powered vehicle arrived at Jezero Crater, hitting NASA’s smallest dance. People visit family, friends and foes come together to throw coloured powders on each and trickiest target yet: a 5-by-4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and other, laugh and gossip, then share Holi delicacies, food and drinks. Some customary drinks rocks. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion include bhang (made from cannabis), which is intoxicating. In the evening, after sobering up, to 4 billion years ago, when water still flowed on the planet. people dress up and visit friends and family. Over the next two years, Percy, as it is nicknamed, will use its 7-foot arm to drill down and collect rock samples containing possible signs of bygone microscopic life. Three to four dozen chalk-size samples will be sealed in tubes and set aside to be retrieved eventually by another rover and brought homeward by another rocket ship. (Continued On Page 13)
