INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
ISTRAC, BENGALURU: Shortly after Chandrayaan-3 touched down softly and surely, smiling senior scientists lined up on the dais with Isro
Chandrayaan-3 for the last 3-4 years
Since the day we started building our spacecraft after Chandrayaan-2, it has been breathe in and breathe out Chandrayaan-3 for our team
the front for the Chandrayaan-3 success:Team leader, Isro chairman S Somanath: Within just a year of taking charge of Isro on January 14,
2022, S Somanath took upon the challenge of taking India to the south pole of Moon
Before taking over as the head of the space agency, he was the director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and had handled the charge of
repairing the rocket of Chandrayaan-2 in the shortest possible time to make it ready for the re-launch on July 22, 2019
Now, as Isro chairman, he changed the strategy of the softlanding after the Chandrayaan-2 crashlanding
Somanath attributed four big challenges for the success of this landing mission
He said the perfect liftoff of LVM-3 rocket on July 14, 2023 gave Team Isro a good advantage as the spacecraft was placed in a perfect orbit
and no extra fuel was spent to correct the orbit
mission: Veeramuthuvel was the most important part of this moon mission
Known for his technical acumen, Veeramuthuvel played a key role in the Chandrayaan-2 mission too
"It's a great moment of happiness
On behalf of the team it gives me immense satisfaction on achieving this goal as the Project Director of the mission
The entire mission operations right from launch till landing happened flawlessly as per the timeline," the project director said after the
Thanking the navigation guidance and control team, propulsion team, sensors team and all the mainframe subsystems teams, who have brought
success to the mission, Veeramuthuvel expressed his gratitude to the critical operations review committee for thoroughly reviewing the
mission operations right from launch till date
"The target was on spot, because of the review process," he said .Kalpana K, deputy project director, Chandrayaan-3: Kalpana
K is an aerospace engineer and currently serves as the deputy project director of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.She has been instrumental in the
construction of various satellites of India and was involved in the Chandrayaan-2 and Mangalyaan missions
We have achieved our goal flawlessly
This happened due to the immense effort of our Chandrayaan-3 team
Since the day we started building our spacecraft after Chandrayaan-2, it has been breathe in and breathe out for our team
Desai: Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, director: Desai as head of the Space Applications Centre (SAC) was given the task of
making the critical components of the spacecraft
Desai told TOI the SAC built 11 sensors or subsystems for the spacecraft
Eight of them are advanced cameras
He said a critical component Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) was introduced this time, allowing measuring altitude in 3 directions for
better understanding of speed during testing
It has two two sensors that will do elemental and chemical composition of the lunar regolith
The data from the lander and rover will come in real time
Unnikrishnan Nair, Thiruvananthapuram-based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) director: Unnikrishnan is the man behind the development of
LVM-3 rocket, also called Bahubali of Isro that lifted off Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft from Sriharikota
His predecessor was S Somanath
said.Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover to moonwalk: This is how India's lunar quest will continue on MOONA Rajarajan, Director of Satish Dhawan
Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota: Rajarajan is the man behind all launches from the Indian spaceport in Sriharikota
He looks after all small to big launches ie
from SSLV to LVM-3 rockets from SDSC
Sankaran, Bengaluru-based U R Rao Satellite Centre director: Since 2021, Sankaran has been director at U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC),
forecasting, and planetary exploration
During his 35 years of stint in URSC and Isro, he has contributed primarily in the areas of solar arrays, power systems, Satellite
Positioning System and RF communication systems for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, geostationary and navigation satellites, and outer
space missions like Chandrayaan, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)
On Wednesday, Sankaran thanked the entire project team for their immense hard work
Much effort has gone into fine-tuning navigation and propulsion system, and a number of simulations done to perfect the landing operations
They overcame the criticism, worked so hard that we landed today due to their effort
My heart goes out to all of them
Hard work and team spirit are what Isro has taught us
We have set the bar so high
We have now to put a man in space and put our spacecraft in Venus and Mars
