Why India’s lunar mission is a ‘giant leap for womankind’

Women in India take a back seat in science and technology research, but they are at the forefront of the country’s world-class space agency the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which recently launched its Vikram moon lander as part of its Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission to attempt to land on the unexplored south pole of the moon.

Women comprise just 14% of the nearly 280,000 scientists, engineers and technologists in the country, while the global average is 28.4%, according to a report of the National Task Force on Women in Science released last year.

But in ISRO, significantly, 30% of scientists are women, including the Chandrayaan-2 Project Director Muthayya Vanitha, an electronics and communications engineer, heading the 300 person Chandrayaan-2 team, and the Mission Director Ritu Karidhal, an aerospace engineer.

Dr M Annadurai, former director of the ISRO satellite centre in Bengaluru, said women have led various satellite launches in the past, but this is the first time both the mission director and project director of such a huge project are women.

The two women also had key roles in India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, in 2008-9 at a time when far fewer women were working at ISRO, and in the country’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan, in 2013.

But they are not the only ones. According to ISRO, several women scientists at the agency have worked on the moon mission and were in the control room at the launch of Chandrayaan-2.

“If the lunar landing of Apollo 11 (50 years ago this year) was hailed as a ‘giant leap for mankind’, the launch of Chandrayaan-2 will be remembered as a ‘giant leap for womankind’,” tweeted Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s civil aviation minister and a former diplomat.

Chandrayaan-2 launched on 22 July. However, in a setback to the complex mission, ISRO scientists lost contact with the Chandrayaan’s Vikram lander on 7 September, only 69 seconds before the scheduled lunar landing when the Vikram spacecraft apparently crash-landed.

The lander's location was this week spotted on the moon’s surface using thermal imaging, and ISRO is racing against time to re-establish contact and restore the lander-rover part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

ISRO has said 90-95% of the Chandrayaan-2 mission objectives have been accomplished and it would continue to contribute to lunar science.

Role models

This has not dampened enthusiasm and the women of ISRO have become role models for the country's budding women scientists.

There is a general perception in India that women are less suited to a career in science and research, and science is still seen as a male profession. On top of that a large number of women who pursue postgraduate and PhD degrees in science fail to convert them into careers. So their story is a huge inspiration to many young girls wanting to pursue science and technology, with the number of women interested in space science sky-rocketing.

Muthayya Vanitha, the first female project director of ISRO’s interplanetary mission, graduated from the College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. A communication systems engineer, she served as an associate director for Chandrayaan-2 before being appointed its project director some 20 months ago.

She joined ISRO 32 years ago “as a junior-most engineer”, she told the news channel NDTV. “I worked in the laboratory, testing carts, making hardware, designing, developing and then reached a managerial position.”

Previously she managed the data sent by Indian remote sensing satellites and led a team of around 60. The job involved long hours of work daily and there was also the pressure of being involved with top management as it was an important mission.

Karidhal is from a lower-middle-class family in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. She has said that at school she was so impressed by a physics teacher that she chose to study physics. She was actively associated with the ISRO Mars mission as deputy operations director.

After graduating from Lucknow University, she obtained a masters degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, before joining ISRO.

As mission director for Chandrayaan-2, her main role was to design the hugely complex mission. She decided what the goals of Chandrayaan-2 should be and how they would be achieved. She had also been deputy operations director for Mangalyaan.

In an interview with the newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, Karidhal said the Mars mission Mangalyaan “was one of the greatest achievements of ISRO. It made India the fourth country in the world to reach Mars. I am proud that I have been associated with both the Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan missions.”

‘Not easy’

But it was not easy. “In 2012, my son was nine and my daughter was four years old. Then it was necessary to be at home. Therefore I changed my work schedule. I worked in the office at night and gave time to the children during the day.”

The Mars and Chandrayaan-1 missions were launched during this time with the Chandrayaan-1 mission carrying out the first and most detailed search for water on the lunar surface using radars.

"On some occasions there was not even enough time to take sick children to hospital. I was rarely able to go to my children's school and felt guilty that I could not give time to them. So I worked at night.”

But she said her children understood her predicament and cooperated. “They always greeted me with a smile whenever I reached home late,” she told the newspaper.

Elsewhere she said: “My advice to young girls is to pursue your dreams and passions without worrying about any problems. Don’t give up your dreams. For parents, they should support their daughters, believe me, they will make you proud.”

Manisha Singh, a lecturer of chemistry at a private college in Raipur, said the situation is improving for women in science and technology. “Things are changing though quite slowly,” she said.

“Women at ISRO have helmed important missions. We are making progress in regard to advancing women in science, but it will take quite some time before they will be able to achieve gender parity with their male colleagues in science.”

The government has launched a ‘Vigyan Jyoti’ (Flame of Knowledge) scheme, set up under the Department of Science and Technology for women scientists to mentor girls and young women. But progress is slow.

Dr Seema Singh, vice president (education and research) of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists, said: “Women’s participation in higher education as well as in the labour force has increased. Women have proved that they are capable. However, the patriarchal mindset still holds at the workplace.”

“We hope in the coming years the magnitude of the gender difference in science will narrow. Things will start moving in the right direction if we stop discrimination against women,” she added.