Good number of women behind Chandrayaan-3, though not at the helm

Chennai, July 14 (IANS) Even though the Chandrayaan-3 mission is helmed by men, unlike the Chandrayaan-2 mission, a sizable number of women are behind the former, said a senior official of the Indian space agency.

"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 official of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS preferring anonymity.

The common thread that runs between Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3 missions is the soft landing of the lander on the lunar soil and the rover doing some chemical experiments.

However, there are differences in the lander specifications, payload experiments and others between the two missions.

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

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

On the other hand, Chandrayaan-3 is an all male mission.

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

The only ISRO woman who might be 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.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached atv.jagannathan@ians.in)

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