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Journalism of Courage
From an expert in propulsion systems to the founding director of ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre, from a mission director who took charge after the failure of Chandrayaan-2 to an ISRO veteran of over three decades – the Chandrayaan-3 mission saw the involvement of top talent to guide the spacecraft through its “solitary journey through the vastness of space”.
“It was not an easy task at all. It was the work of so many years. The learning from Chandrayaan-2 really helped us perfect the methodology,” said ISRO chairman S Somanath after the landing. He also made it a point to ensure key members of his team spoke before him, and repeatedly thanked everyone who helped realise the goal. “Chandrayaan 3 is the result of work done by thousands of engineers and staff across institutions,” he also stated.
A look at the team behind the ambitious project:
Here are the six key scientists behind ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission:
1) P Veeramuthuvel: Project Director
Son of a former railway employee, Veeramuthuvel is a mechanical engineer with a PhD from IIT Madras. Hailing from Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram region, he joined ISRO in 2014, and was made the project director after the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 landing mission in September 2019, which he was part of.
He has been in-charge of the overall mission of putting together the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in coordination with multiple ISRO centres.
Since the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft by the LVM 3 rocket on July 14, Veeramuthuvel and his team of scientists have been at the mission control room at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network Centre, constantly monitoring the health and operations of the spacecraft on its 384,000 km voyage to the moon.
“It is a great moment of happiness, and on behalf of the team, I would like to say that it gives immense satisfaction to achieve this goal as the project director. The entire mission operations – from launch till landing – happened flawlessly as per the timeline and we became the fourth country to demonstrate the soft landing on the moon’s surface, and the first country to go near to the south pole of the moon,” he said on Wednesday.
He thanked the navigation, guidance and control team, the propulsion team, the sensors team and the subsystems team, as well as the critical operations review committee. “The landing was spot on due to the review process,” he said.
2) M Srikanth, mission director
When the Chandrayaan-2 mission was underway on September 7, 2019, one of the scientists who appeared animated and frequently in shots of the mission operation centre was Srikanth. When the landing failed, the deep disappointment at ISRO found a reflection in photos of his face. For the Chandrayaan-3 mission, Srikanth, an electronics engineer, was appointed as the mission director to look at flaws in the previous mission and erase them from this one. “We have been working for the last four years on this mission. Now, everything is good, everything has gone smoothly. It has been a textbook landing,” he said.
Srikanth has been with ISRO for 19 years and has worked on the Chandrayaan-2 and the Mars Orbiter missions. He has an MSc degree in electronics from the Andhra University and an MTech from Indore University.
3) K Kalpana, associate project director
She was an associate director on the Chandrayaan-2 mission as well, and was roped in for this one to study and correct the systems that caused the failure in 2019.
“This is the happiest moment for me. We have achieved our goal flawlessly. We started rebuilding our spacecraft after the Chandrayaan-2 experience. It has been a breathe-in and breathe-out Chandrayaan mission for us for the last four years. Starting from the reconfiguration, all the special tests and simulations we have done meticulously,” she said. “This has been possible only due to the immense effort by our Chandrayaan-3 team.” Hailing from Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh she joined ISRO 23 years ago after obtaining a degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering in Chennai.
4) B N Ramakrishna: Director, ISTRAC
Ramakrishna is the seventh Director of ISTRAC, Isro’s facility in Bengaluru which functions as the mission control centre for deep space missions by converging data from deep space network stations.
For the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISTRAC is linked to an Isro deep space network station located at Byalalu outside Bengaluru and to foreign deep space monitoring earth stations like those of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the US and ESA of Europe.
Ramakrishna holds a Master’s degree in science from Bengaluru and is considered an expert in the areas of navigation using satellites and orbit determination of spacecraft.
5) M Sankaran: Director, U R Rao Space Centre
Sankaran is the director of what was formerly known as the Isro Satellite Centre—the agency which builds spacecraft for the agency’s space missions. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was built at URSC.
Sankaran has been the director of URSC since June 2021. He was previously the deputy director for the Communication and Power Systems Unit at URSC and has played a role in the development of solar arrays, power systems, and communication systems for Isro’s Chandrayaan 1 and 2 and Mars Orbiter Missions (MOM).
He has a Master’s degree in Physics from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli.
6) S Mohana Kumar: Mission Director for launch of Chandrayaan 3
Mohana Kumar, Isro’s mission director for the July 14 launch of Chandrayaan-3 on the LMV3 rocket, was the one who made the first formal announcement of the success of the launch on July 14 at Sriharikota.
“This is mission director (S Mohana Kumar) The LVM3/Chandrayaan mission accomplished its precise satellite injection conditions. The LVM3-M4 mission is successful,” he had said.
“I am very happy to say that the LVM 3 rocket has injected the Chandrayaan 3 satellite into a precise orbit and once again the vehicle has proved to be one of the most reliable heavy-lift rockets of Isro,” he had said.
The Isro veteran was in March this year the mission director for an LVM3 launch of satellites for the One Web India 2 service.
Mohana Kumar is a senior scientist at Isro’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, which is in essence the centre for building rocket capabilities for the agency. He has been with Isro for over 30 years.
7) V Narayanan: Director, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre
An expert on propulsion system analysis, cryogenic engine design, and management of large projects, Narayanan has played a key role in designing the propulsion systems on board Chandrayaan-3.
“It is a historical event for the Indian space programme. The entire space community has put in enormous effort over the last four years and we have realised a marvellous, great scientific satellite,” Dr Narayanan, who has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, had said at the launch of Chandrayaan-3 last month.
“We also have two engines on the propulsion module and two engines in the lander for the soft landing. The system is well integrated and the system health is very good,” said the alumni of IIT Kharagpur last month.
The cryogenic engines for the LVM3 rocket which launched Chandrayaan 3 were built at LPSC.
8) S Unnikrishnan Nair: Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre
An expert in human space flight systems, Nair is the Director of Isro’s main rocket-building facility at Thiruvananthapuram. He joined Isro in 1985 and has been involved in the development of various aerospace systems and mechanisms for PSLV, GSLV, and LVM3 rockets.
Nair was associated with the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme from its study phase in 2004 and was the founding director of Isro’s new Human Space Flight Centre.
“When the beginning is good the ending has to be good. I wish Chandrayaan 3 all the best through its solitary journey through the vastness of space before making a feather-like soft landing in the fourth week of August,” Dr Nair had said after the successful launch of Chandrayaan-3.
A B Tech in mechanical engineering from Kerala University, he has a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering from IISc, Bangalore, and a PhD in mechanical engineering from IIT Madras.
