These Women Will Lead India's Historic Chandrayaan-2 Mission, We Are So Proud Of Them

At 2.51 a.m. on July 15, India has a date with history as Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission is all set to take off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s space centre in Andhra Pradesh.

Ritu Karidhal (left) and Muthayya Vanitha (right)

Apart from the achievement, what makes it more special that this is for the first time,? a woman is heading the project. Muthyya Vanitha is heading the Chandrayaan 2 project as project director and Ritu Karidhan is leading the project as mission director.

Apart from the two women leading the mission at the top positions, the ISRO Chairman, K Sivan said the press conference that 30 percent of the team working on Chandrayaan-2 consist of women.?

Here are some facts about the two women leading the mission:

1. Mathayya Vanitha, Project Director

Apart from being the first woman to head a project as director at ISRO, Muthayya Vanitha has served as deputy project director for data systems for Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2 and Megha-Tropiques satellites- the three remote sensing satellites.

The project director of Chandrayaan-2 Mission has also been best woman scientist award back in 2006.

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“Vanitha is an expert in data handling. She was comfortable in her digital/ hardware section and was hesitant to move to a project director role. This role not only involves nearly 18 hours of work a day at its peak, which means many sacrifices, but is also in the national limelight bringing heavy responsibility of its own,” said Dr M Annadurai, the project director of Chandrayaan-1.

He spoke highly of Vanitha and also played an instrumental role in convincing Muthayya Vanitha to take up the responsibility of project director of Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission.?

One of the “Rocket Women” of India, Ritu Karidhal

She has done M.Sc in Physics from Lucknow University, M. Tech from India Institute of Science in Bangalore. Ritu Karidhal, also known as one of the “Rocket Women” of India, has been a mainstay among scientists at ISRO.?

Images courtesy: ISRO

Apart from leading the Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission as Mission Director, Ritu Karidhal was also a part of Mars Orbiter Mission 2013.?

She always had the fascination about space, an urge to do something different from a normal trend. Besides being the Mission Director for Chandrayaan-2, Ritu was associated with the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013.?