Hyderabad: As the Vikram Lander will touchdown the lunar surface on September 7, ISRO's mettle in the space science will further kick up a notch. All credit goes to the great minds who made India proud with their skills and efforts.
Muthayya Vanitha and Ritu Karidhal will be proud when the lander, onboard India's second moon mission Chandrayaan-2, lands on Moon’s south pole on the wee hours of Saturday.
1. Muthayya Vanitha
Muthayya Vanitha is the Director, responsible for the Indian Space Research Organisation's Rs 978 crore project from start to finish.
Said to be an ace data specialist, Muthayya of the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre is easily the only woman to head a prestigious planetary mission, having been part of the earlier Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2, and Megha-Tropiques teams.
Muthayya specialises in digital signal processing and has written numerous papers on satellite communications. She received the best woman scientist award from the Astronautical Society of India in 2006.
The science journal Nature has named her as one of the five scientists to watch out for in 2019.
2. Ritu Karidhal
Ritu Karidhal is the Mission Director, coordinating the injection of Chandrayaan-2 into orbit.
Supporting Ms Vanitha as mission director for spacecraft aspects is Ritu Karidhal also from the URSC.
An IISc alumna, Ms Karidhal was Deputy Director (Operations) for the Mars Orbiter Mission of 2013.
She studied aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Science and received ISRO’s young scientist award in 2007.
3. Kailasavadivoo Sivan
Kailasavadivoo Sivan is the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. He led Chandrayaan-2 mission to Moon.
Sivan received a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from IIT Bombay in 2006. He joined ISRO in 1982 and worked on almost all rocket programmes.
Before taking charge as ISRO Chairman in January 2018, he was the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), which develops rockets.
He is known as ISRO's 'Rocket Man' for his contribution to the development of the cryogenic engine, PSLV, GSLV and reusable launch vehicle (RLV) programmes.
On July 22, he and his team successfully launched the mission from Sriharikota.
4. Dr M Annadurai
Dr M Annadurai is the Project Director of the mission. He was the former Director of the ISRO satellite centre in Bengaluru.
Annadurai was also the Programme Director of "Mangalyaan", the Mars Orbiter Mission, launched in 2013.
5. S Pandian
S Pandian superannuated as the Director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre on June 30.
6. S Rajarajan
ISRO brought in S Rajarajan from the launch vehicle centre in Thiruvananthapuram, VSSC, to send off the mission.
7. Jayaprakash
The launcher team is led by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre's Jayaprakash. He is the Mission Director for the GSLV Mk-III/Chandrayaan-2 mission.
He hails from Paripally, Kollam. An alumnus of Madras Institute of Technology, Jayaprakash had joined the VSSC in 1985.
8. S Somanath
S Somanath is the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. Somanath has been involved in the GSLV Mk-III project since its inception.
Somanath of the VSSC provided the GSLV Mk-III launcher for the mission. He was also mission director of the December 18, 2014, LVM3-X/CARE experiment.
9. P Kunhikrishnan
P Kunhikrishnan, Director of the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre was responsible for the realisation of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
He is a past director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. He was also mission director for 13 missions of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
10. V V Srinivasan
V V Srinivasan, whose tracking centre ISTRAC in Bengaluru will handle vital post-launch manoeuvres of the spacecraft, have stayed in the shadows of the lunar mission.
11. Chandrakant Kumar
Chandrakant Kumar is a senior scientist of ISRO and lead the Chandrayaan-2 mission. He has designed the antenna systems for the Indian satellites and ground stations. He served as the project manager, antenna systems, for Chandrayaan-1, GSAT-12 and ASTROSAT.
Presently, he is Deputy Project Director, responsible for the RF system of Chandrayaan-2, and heads the ‘Electromagnetics’ Section of UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC).
