Chandrayaan-3: Helmed by men unlike Chandrayaan-2

Chennai: While the common purpose of India’s last two moon missions is the soft landing of the lander on lunar soil and the rover doing some research, there are differences in the specifications, payload experiments and others.

But the most glaring difference between Chandrayaan 2 and 3 missions is the sex of the people helming the two moon missions.

Two women played a key role in the Chandrayaan-2 mission viz., Project Director M.Vanitha and Mission Director Ritu Karidhal Srivastava.

While the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is tightlipped about its people helming the Chandrayaan-3 project, it is learnt the Chandrayaan-3 will be an all male affair.

The Mission Director is Mohan Kumar, the Vehicle/Rocket Director is Biju C. Thomas and the Spacecraft Director is Dr P. Veeramuthuvel.

ISRO officials told IANS that there are women officials who had contributed to the mission at the Deputy Director levels. The only ISRO woman who is visible for the people is P. Madhuri, an official at the Sriharikota rocket port and the commentator during the rocket launches.

Indian rocket LVM3 will lift off at 2.35 p.m. on Friday from the Sriharikota rocket port carrying Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. The spacecraft in turn holds a lander and a rover. The primary purpose of this mission is to soft land the lander on the moon and the rover to do some experiments on the moon soil.