Meet India’s ‘rocket woman’ Ritu Karidhal, scientist behind Chandrayaan-3 mission
Ritu Karidhal
The Chandrayaan-3 lunar expedition accomplished a triumphant soft landing at 6:04 pm (Indian Standard Time) on August 23rd. India marked a significant moment in history by becoming the pioneer nation to achieve a successful lunar landing in the southpoleregion, courtesy of the ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the Chandrayaan-3 mission, on Friday (July 14) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota at 2:35 pm (local time). The launch marked the country’s third lunar mission and second attempt at a soft landing on the surface of the moon.
Following the successful launch of the moon lander named ‘Vikram’ was perched on a GSLV Mark 3 heavy-lift launch vehicle, congratulations began pouring in for the team of scientists at ISRO. Unlike its predecessor, the Chandrayaan-2 mission, this time around there is a sizable number of women behind the project.
Earlier, a senior official of ISRO reportedly said there are around 54 female engineers and scientists who are working directly for the Chandrayaan-3 missionin various roles like associates, deputy project directors and project managers for various systems, and so on.
Dr Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, who is popularly known as India’s ‘rocket woman,’ and is one of the senior scientists at ISRO, is said to be at the helm of theChandrayaan-3 mission.
Who is Ritu Karidhal?
Dr Ritu Karidhal was the mission director of Chandrayaan-2 and the deputy operations director of Mangalyaan, ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) which successfully reached the Red Planet’s orbit in 2014 and India became the first Asian nation to achieve this feat.
Karidhal was born and brought up in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow. She pursued her MSc in Physics from Lucknow University in 1996 and her MTech from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru.
She is always said to have been fascinated by space and developed an interest in exploring space from a very young age. One of her hobbies during school days was collecting news articles related to any space activities by ISRO or NASA.
Karidhal, with her expertise in aerospace, joined ISRO in November 1997 and worked for many prestigious missions of the space organisation and played a key role in most of them. According to the Women Economic Forum (WEF), Karidhal has published more than 20 papers both in international and national publications.
Chandrayaan-3’s successful launch
“It is a matter of pride for us since she has been our student. She was a bright student and had even qualified GATE. She got selected in ISRO while she was pursuing her PhD from here,” Lucknow University Professor Poonam Tandon said about Karidhal, in an interview with PTI, on Friday.
Karidhal’s family was also seen celebrating and distributing sweets after the successful launch of ISRO’s LVM3 M4 vehicle into orbit.
(With inputs from agencies)
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