Meet Ritu Kirdhal & Muthayya Vanitha, India's Rocket Women Who Lead Chandrayaan 2!
In the last decade, we have seen women all across the globe taking up more leadership roles than ever before in science and technology and hell yeah, they are successfully breaking all gender stereotypes.
And now, we present to you two more boss ladies that are added to the growing list. Let's put our hands together for India's 'rocket women' Ritu Karidhal (Indian Space Research Organisation scientist) and Muthayya Vanitha ( electronics system engineer). These two ladies steered Chandrayaan 2, ISRO's significant Lunar project which launched on July 22.
With scientific expertise and critical skills for Space Engineering, these senior women space scientists have been in association with ISRO for almost two decades now.
Photo from New Indian Express
Ritu Karidhal was the Mission Director and Muthayya Vanitha was assigned as the Project Director.
Talking more about their roles in the mission, K Radhakrishnan, former ISRO chairman said, " A project director is responsible for the project from the very beginning, which involves getting the entire system configured, reviewed, assembled and implemented, and also to become a single -point authority for the overall project. A mission director handles all the things which have to be done on the spacecraft from the time it is inserted into the orbit, from the initial operations, raising the orbit to taking all the contingency actions when required. Whereas the project director is to be a part of the task for years, while the mission director gets involved once the satellite is injected into orbit."
K Sivan, ISRO Chairman revealed that this was India's first interplanetary mission to be helmed by two women. In fact, 30% of the team in this project includes women.
Here are some unknown facts about the 'rocket women':
Ritu Karidhal
Photo from NewsIn.Asia
Born in Lucknow, she holds a masters degree in the field of Aerospace Engineering from the renowned Indian Institute of Science.
She was the Deputy Operations Manager for the Mars Mission and was now the mission director for Chandrayaan 2.
Muthayya Vanitha
Photo from Youth Ki Awaaz
A design engineer by profession, Vanitha received the Best Woman Scientist award in 2006 by the Astronomical Society of India.
She is the first woman to hold the position of a Project Director.
She was the main scientist involved in ensuring that the Mangalyaan satellite was launched on November 5, 2013.
We are so proud of these ladies!
Picture Credits- New Indian Express, Youth Ki Awaaz, NewsIn.Asia
Feature Image- NewsIn.Asia, Sentinel Assam
Text By- GirlStyle IN
