Chandrayaan-3 mission: Five scientists from Jadavpur University, six of Jalpaiguri Govt Engg College in ISRO team

A total of 31 scientists from West Bengal are part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Among which, Jadavpur University has five scientists, including two professors and three former students while Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College has six former students in the team.

Kolkata:Jadavpur University (JU) that recently attracted attention for the wrong reasons, came to the limelight today after it was revealed that three former students and two professors of the institute are among the 31 scientists from West Bengal who were part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Another institute that has made a significant contribution to the country's feat is Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College that has six of its alumni in the team.

While the entire world had its eyes on the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3, professors of Jalpaiguri Engineering College were pleasantly surprised to find a man in pink shirt among the ISRO scientists to be one of their former students. "That's our Kaushik (Nag)..." shouted Professor Soupayan Mitra who was glued to the television set. Kaushik, a resident of Jalpaiguri and a former student of the college is now a scientist with the ISRO. The other former students of the college in the ISRO team are Sujoy Dolui, Amarnath Nandy, S Sarkhel, Niranjan Kumar and Mukunda Kumar Thakur.

Likewise from JU, three of its former students, Bijay Dai from Birbhum, Krishanu Nandy from Bankura and Anuj Nandy from North Dinajpur's Islampur have been instrumental in the mission. Bijay, who did his MTech from Jadavpur after completing BTech from Kalyani Government Engineering College, was in the operation team of Chandrayaan-3.

Krishanu, an MTech from Jadavpur University, was responsible for coordinating the movement of robot vehicle after landing on the moon. Anuj, a postgraduate of JU, was responsible for devising an instrument called the Spectro-Polametry of Habitable Planet Earth which was an integral part of the landing process.

This apart, two professors namely Power Engineering Department head Amitava Gupta and Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering Department's Sayan Chatterjee were hired by ISRO to work on the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

"Undoubtedly, it's a great feat! More so because when we got the project, three undergraduate students volunteered to work with us. That was during the Covid pandemic period when we had no access to laboratories and computers. In 2019, we got this sponsored project from ISRO on lander mission. Amitava and I started working on the project. I was looking after the imaging part while Amitava looked after the control part of the design," Professor Sayan Chatterjee said.

"Today is a day of great pride for us. After working for so long, we have finally achieved success. We want to do more work for the country," Kaushik Nag told ETV Bharat over phone from Bengaluru. Kaushik had joined ISRO in 2018.