Wonder women behind the success of Chandrayaan 2

New Delhi, July 22: The country's most awaited second lunar mission finally took off on Monday 2:43pm from Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO's) Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. According to a report, 30 per cent of the members who worked on this project are women.

The two women who made this ₹978 crore Chandrayaan-2 mission possible are Muthayya Vanitha and Ritu Karidhal - Project Director for Chandrayaan 2. It had never happened before when women power is heading this much of highly important ISRO mission.

After achieving success in sports, ministries and defence women now excels in rocket science. And these new generation women have proved it.

Muthayya Vanitha is an electronics engineer, now responsible for success and failure of Chandrayaan-2. On the other hand, Mission Director Ritu Karidhal was earlier working as Deputy Director of the Mars Mission.

Muthayya Vanitha is the first woman project director to work with ISRO, she has also been the deputy project director for data systems for the remote sensing satellites Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2 and Megha-Tropiques satellite.

Apart from Mission Moon 2, Vanitha also had led this project but she also won the best woman scientist award in the year 2006.

Ritu Karidhal, the another female director of mission Chandrayaan-2 is also fondly known as the 'Rocket Woman of India'. She was the Deputy Operations Director for the Mars mission. She holds a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. She is responsible for the spacecraft's outward autonomy system. She is also a recipient of ISRO Young Scientist Award conferred by President APJ Abdul Kalam in 2007.

Ritu Karidhal holds a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

Although, the two leading lady scientists of ISRO, Vanitha and Ritu are in their 40s but their work experience with ISRO spans more than 20 years.

The 640-tonne rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) standing at about 44 metre tall, is nicknamed the 'Bahubali', as like the hero in the successful film lifts a heavy Lingam, the rocket will carry the 3.8-tonne Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. It will be a long journey for the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft carrying Lander-Vikram and Rover-Pragyaan will travel further to the moon.

On September 6, the Lander Vikram is expected to make a soft landing on the moon and then Pragyaan will roll out to carry out in-situ experiments.

Women today have made the nation proud from sports, fighter jet to rocket science. Nothing is impossible for the new generation women.