Over the Moon: Meet the team behind India’s Chandrayaan-3

India is on the moon! With the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the country has made history by becoming the first ever to land on the Moon’s south pole. As the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover landed on the Moon, cheers broke out at the ISRO’s ISTRAC (Indian Space Research Organisation’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command) centre in Bengaluru.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, joining in virtually for the event from Johannesburg where he’s attending the BRICS summit , hailed the ISRO team for their efforts, saying: “This moment is precious and unprecedented. This moment is the jaighosh of new India. This moment is the strength of 1.4 billion heartbeats. Success of Amrit Varsha in this phase of Amrit Kaal.”

Shortly after being hailed by the PM for this unbelievable and almost impossible feat, ISRO chairperson S Somanath congratulated project director P Veeramuthuvel, assistant director Kalpana, mission director Srikanth and URSC director V Sankaran for the success. He added, “Chandrayaan-3 is the result of work done by thousands of scientists.”

Besides being the first country to land in the unexplored area of the south pole, India has also joined the elite club of countries to have mastered the technology of soft landing on the Moon. So far, the United States, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union have achieved this feat.

As we celebrate this momentous occasion, we take a look at the team behind Chandrayaan-3.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3 costs lesser than big films: How India keeps its space missions frugal

S Somanath

ISRO carried out the ambitious Chandrayaan-3 under the leadership of its chairman S Somanath. An Indian aerospace engineer, he took over as chairperson of the space agency in 2022. Born into a family based in Kerala, he pursued mechanical engineering and went on to receive a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

Ahead of the landing, Somanath was confident that the mission would be successful. “We are confident as everything has been all fine so far and there have been no contingencies faced until this juncture. We’ve done all the preparations and all systems have performed as we need them to until this stage,” he told The Times of India (ToI). He said that they were preparing for the landing with multiple simulations, verification and double verification of systems, and the checking of instruments’ health was being done on Monday and Tuesday.

Speaking to NDTV ahead of the launch on 14 July, the ISRO chief said that they have taken additional measures this time to ensure the lander and rover reach the Moon’s surface even if certain elements do not go as planned.

“We have added new instruments to handle failures, new algorithms to handle off-nominal situations, new approaches to soft land in case of not-availability, any such measurements and total uncertainty”, the ISRO chief said.

A day ahead of the launch, Somanath offered prayers at Sri Chengalamma temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Sullurpeta. A team of ISRO scientists team had also visited the Tirupati Venkatachalapathy Temple in the southern state with a miniature model of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to offer prayers.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3: Why ISRO is bracing for ‘20 minutes of terror’ ahead of landing

P Veeramuthuvel

P Veeramuthuvel, a native of Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu, is the project director of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. He joined ISRO as a scientist in 1989, as per a News9 report.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Veeramuthuvel took charge of India’s third moon mission in 2019.

He succeeded Muthayya Vanitha, who served as the project director of Chandrayaan-2. During India’s second moon mission, Veeramuthuvel was the point person for ISRO’s negotiations with United States ‘ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), reported Business Standard.

Veeramuthuvel was previously the deputy director of the Space Infrastructure Programme Office at ISRO headquarters, the report added.

S Unnikrishnan Nair

S Unnikrishnan Nair is the director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). As per Business Standard, Nair and his team are responsible for various key functions of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Nair, who has a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT(M), Chennai, is the founding director of the Human Space Flight Centre in Bangalore.

As per the VSSC website, Nair has contributed to developing various aerospace systems and mechanisms for Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3).

LVM3 was the rocket trusted by ISRO for sending its Chandrayaan-3 satellite to the moon.

A Rajarajan

As per Business Standard, A Rajarajan is the chairman of the Launch Authorisation Board (LAB) which approves the launch.

Currently, Rajarajan is serving as the director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR), Sriharikota. “He has extensively worked in the area of design and development of composites products and played a pivotal role in developing many innovative technologies for the development of composites for Satellites & Launch Vehicle sub-systems,” says the SHAR website.

Chayan Dutta

Chayan Dutta supervised the launch control operations of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Hailing from Assam’s Lakhimpur district, Dutta is an alumnus of Tezpur University, reported Times of India (TOI).

He is currently working as Scientist/Engineer-G at UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Department of Space, as per East Mojo.

According to Tezpur University, Dutta is heading the “on board command telemetry, data handling and storage system,” of the lander in Chandrayaan-3, noted TOI.

“I am deeply honoured and humbled to have been entrusted with the responsibility. This mission represents a significant milestone for our nation and the global scientific community”, Dutta said in a message to his alma mater.

Others

S Mohana Kumar is the mission director of the third moon mission, while Biju C Thomas is the Vehicle/Rocket director, reported IANS.

One of the major differences between the Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3 missions was that the former was helmed by women. While Vanitha was the project director of Chandrayaan-2, Ritu Karidhal was the mission director.

Although several women were involved in Chandrayaan-3, the mission was led by male scientists.

“There are about 54 female engineers/scientists who worked directly in the Chandrayaan-3 mission. They are associate and deputy project directors and project managers of various systems working at different centres,” a senior ISRO official told IANS on the condition of anonymity.

If all goes well, this team will etch its name in the history books of India.

With inputs from agencies