Breaking gender stereotypes, Vanitha Muthayya and Ritu Karidhal, two of ISRO’s finest scientists, scripted history by becoming the first women to spearhead the Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission Launch. Launched by India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV MkIII-M1, on July 22, 2019, Chandrayaan-2 is to investigate the largely unexplored South Pole region of the moon.
Muthayya was the project director, while Karidhal was the mission director for the second lunar exploration mission.
- Vanitha is an electronics systems design engineer and has been working at ISRO for over thirty years. She is known for her problem-solving skills and had earlier worked as the deputy project director for TTC-baseb and systems for Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2 and Hegha-Tropiques satellites. She received the Best Woman Scientist award of the Astronomical Society of India in 2006.
Ritu Karidhal is referred to as the ‘Rocket Woman of India’. She hails from Lucknow and has a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. She began her career as an aerospace engineer at ISRO in 1997 and has worked on several ISRO projects. She worked as the deputy operations director of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). She bagged the ISRO team award for the same and also won the Women Achievers in Aerospace accolade. Ritu also received the prestigious ISRO Young Scientist Award in 2007 from Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the then President of India.
Other Top women scientists in ISRO
T.K. Anuradha is a distinguished scientist and project director of the ISRO. She is also the first woman to become a satellite project director at ISRO. Specialised in communication satellites, she has worked on the launches of the satellites, namely, GSAT-12 and GSAT-10. She is the senior-most female scientist at ISRO. She works in the area of geo-synchronous satellites, which are crucial to telecom and data links. She was awarded with the 2003 Space Gold Medal award by Astronautical Society of India; the 2011 Suman Sharma Award by National Design and Research Forum (NDRF) of IEI; the 2012 ASI-ISRO Merit Award for Realisation of Indigenous Communication spacecraft; and 2012 ISRO Team Award 2012 for being team leader for the realisation of GSAT-12.
- Valarmathi N. Valarmathi is a scientist and project director of RISAT-1. It is India’s first indigenously developed radar imaging satellite, launched successfully in 2012. She is the first person to receive Abdul Kalam Award, instituted by the Government of Tamil Nadu in 2015. She has been working with the ISRO since 1984, and has worked in key satellite missions including Insat-2A, IRS-IC, IRS-ID, and TES.
V.R. Lalithambika V.R. Lalithambika is an engineer and scientist working with the ISRO. Specialised in Advanced Launcher Technologies, she is leading the Gaganyaan mission to send Indian astronauts to space by 2022. She has worked with various ISRO rockets including the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), and Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). She has been a part of over 100 space missions and was awarded the Space Gold Medal (2001), ISRO Individual Merit Award, and ISRO Performance Excellence Award (2013). She has also won the Astronautical Society of India award for excellence in launch vehicle technology.
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Key faces behind the Mars Mission
Seetha Somasundaram Dr. Seetha Somasundaram, Programme Director at ISRO’s Space Science Programme Office, was involved in the payload characterisation and calibration of Mangalyaan. With the successful launch of Mangalyaan on November 5, 2013, India became the first country in the world to have reached Mars in the very first attempt.
Nandini Harinath A rocket scientist at ISRO’s Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, was a part of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) as deputy operations director. She has worked on 14 missions in her career spanning over 20 years at ISRO.
Minal Rohit Minal Rohit is a systems engineer at ISRO. She worked with mechanical engineers on the team of MOM. As a system integration engineer, she monitored systems and the methane sensors involved with the spacecraft.
Moumita Dutta Moumita Dutta is a physicist and works at the Space Applications Centre (SAC), at ISRO, Ahmedabad. An expert in the development and testing of the Optical and IR sensors/instruments/payloads (i.e., cameras and imaging spectrometers), she was part of the team MOM to put a probe into orbit around Mars in 2014. Her efforts in developing one of the five payloads of MOM are noteworthy.
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