Quantcast
Channel: Prasar Bharati Parivar
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 9466

Inspiration-Meet the women behind Mangalyaan mission.

$
0
0

Think Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), think Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan, G. Madhavan Nair, Rodham Narsimha and a host of geniuses. They build on an earlier generation of scientists who worked to push India’s space frontiers, men who came to define the contours of the country’s scientific rediscovery — C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha. But times are changing.

Two years ago, as Indian scientists successfully put a satellite Mangalyaan into orbit around Mars, history was scripted. Away from the dour image of spectacled and formally suited nerds working on complex diagrams and theories, this snapshot of Indian scientists, who achieved the feat in a record 15 months, was warmly refreshing — women dressed in resplendent saris, chatting gaily as they went about their work.

Given that they have to work hard at home as well, faced as they are with societal discrimination, the Isro story remains a landmark not just for Indian science, but the women behind it.

Ritu Karidhal — from sky watcher to scientist.

Ritu Karidhal is the Lucknow-born deputy operations director of the Mars Orbiter Mission. As a little girl growing up in Lucknow, Ritu was an avid sky watcher who “used to wonder about the size of the moon, why it increases and decreases. I wanted to know what lay behind the dark spaces,” she says.
A student of science, she scoured newspapers for information about Nasa and Isro projects, collected news clippings and read every detail about anything related to space science. After getting her PG degree, “I applied for a job at Isro and that’s how I became a space scientist,” she says.

Eighteen years later, she has worked on several projects at Isro, including the prestigious Mars mission, which thrust her and her colleagues into the limelight. She told a news portal in 2015 that she had to conceptualise and ensure the execution of the craft’s autonomous brain so that it could function on its own and even overcome malfunctions.

In the final campaign period of 10 months leading to the launch, she would sit with her kids for their homework and then resume her work between midnight and 4 am. Some stamina and perseverance that.

Although women scientists were part of the mission right from the time of conception, Ritu says its success was due to the great team effort. “We used to sit with the engineers, irrespective of the time, we often worked the weekends,” she reminisces. A mother of two young children, she says it was not easy to maintain a work-life balance, but “I got the support I needed from my family, my husband and my siblings.

Source And Credit: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/science/science/260217/indias-rocket-women.html

Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 9466

Trending Articles



<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>