MiMi Aung isn’t any stranger to modern historical solutions. She was raised in Burma (now Burma), where her mother was the primary woman within the country to earn a PhD in mathematics. On April 19, Aung served as team leader for NASA’s first helicopter flight to Mars.
“It was an amazing moment,” Aung said of Ingenuity’s 39-second flight, which has been in comparison with the Wright brothers’ first flight to Earth in 1903 for its promise of future discovery and innovation. “This morning our dream came true.”
Ingenuity arrived on Mars on March 18 as a part of NASA’s Perseverance rover mission to go looking for signs of ancient life and collect rocks and sediments for future return missions to Earth. The helicopter is carrying a small piece of fabric from the Wright brothers’ plane during its mission.
Aung got here to the United States on the age of 16 and studied engineering on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her parents met at university, and Aung was born within the United States, although her family returned to Burma when she was 2 years old.
Her mother taught her a love of mathematics and a rigorous approach to problem solving. As a baby, Aung asked her mother to unravel a frustrating math problem, and her answer was a lesson in self-reliance and determination: “Never, ever ask me for a shortcut.”
After earning her master’s degree in electrical engineering, Aung began working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. She worked on the Deep Space Network for communicating with spacecraft, and in a while autonomous flight systems.
As project manager for NASA’s Mars Helicopter Project, Aung oversees the various team that designed, built, tested and flew Ingenuity. She grew up in Burma, and other team members include chief engineer Bob Balaram, who’s from India, and pilot Håvard Grip, who’s from Norway.
The team took on complex challenges similar to flying within the Martian atmosphere, which is so thin that Aung compares it to Earth’s air at “altitudes 3 times higher than the Himalayas.” Ingenuity is light, weighs just one.8 kilograms, and the blades rotate over 2,500 times per minute.
Ingenuity will perform several more flights in the approaching weeks to gather data and supply information for future helicopter missions exploring the Red Planet.
Acting NASA Administrator Stephen G. Jurczyk credits Aung’s leadership with making the Ingenuity mission possible. “Her excitement and enthusiasm for making this event happen was contagious,” he said.
Working at NASA is “a privilege and just an amazing opportunity that I appreciate each day” says Aung. “Being that little girl in Burma, I had no idea if I would ever be in another country, let alone be part of a community that was actively exploring space.”
By US Embassy in Tbilisi | April 25, 2021
