Chandrayaan-3: Meet the brilliant minds behind the mission

The Chandrayaan-3 is scheduled to touch down on August 23, 2023, at around 18:04 hours. The entire country is hoping for a secure landing. The work our ISRO scientists are doing to accomplish this goal is expected to shortly pay off. The Chandrayaan-3 team as a whole has invested a lot of aspirations and desires in this project. This Moon mission aims for safe landing on the Moon and exploring its surface. 

Here are key details of the people who made this mission possible:

S Somanath (ISRO Chairman)

S Somanath is regarded as one of the primary figures behind India's planned moon mission. He assumed leadership of the Indian space agency in January of last year. He served as the director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre — the primary centres for development of rocket technologies for ISRO.  He is in charge of Chandrayaan-3, as well as other significant missions like Aditya-L1 to Sun and Gaganyaan (India's first manned mission).

P Veeramuthuvel (Chandrayaan 3 project director)

Prior to taking the helm of the Chandrayaan-3 project in 2019, P Veeramuthuvel served as the deputy director of ISRO's Space Infrastructure Programme Office. He was a key player in the Chandrayaan-2 project, the second in India's ambitious moon-mission series. He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) and comes from Villupuram in the Tamil Nadu state.

S Unnikrishnan Nair (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director)

The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) near Thumba in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram developed the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark-III, afterwards renamed Launch Vehicle Mark-III. S Unnikrishnan Nair, who is in charge of VSSC, and his staff are in charge of several vital tasks for the important mission.

M Sankaran (U R Rao Satellite Centre director)

M Sankaran was appointed Director of the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in June 2021. All of India's satellites are designed and constructed by this facility for ISRO. He is currently in charge of the group that creates satellites to fulfil the nation's requirements in communication, navigation, remote sensing, weather forecasting, and even planetary exploration.

A Rajarajan (Launch Authorisation Board chief)

A Rajarajan is a renowned scientist who serves as the director of Sriharikota's main space port, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR). He is also the chairman of LAB, which gives the green signal for the launch.  He has made sure that solid motors and launch infrastructure are ready for ISRO's expanding launch demands, including Gaganyaan and SSLV, and he is an expert in composite materials.

In addition to them, the Chandrayaan-3 team includes director Mohan Kumar, who is in charge of the project's operational components, and vehicle director Biju C Thomas. Around 54 female engineers/scientists have worked directly on the mission. 

• Chandrayaan 3
• Chandrayaan-3
• ISRO
• Moon
• Moon Mission
• S Somanath
• S Unnikrishnan Nair