In a significant moment for India and the World, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists did the unthinkable on Wednesday when the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 made its soft landing on the suface of the moon. The touchdown, which took place as scheduled on August 23, has also brought to limelight the background of the exemplary scientists who made the feat possible.
According to a tweet by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, the ISRO scientists who are behind the success of Chandrayaan-3 are not from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) but rather other lesser known Engineering colleges across India.
While ISRO Chief S Somanath is himself a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Thangal Kunju Musaliar College of Engineering in Kollam, Kerala, at least seven more engineers from the successful team belong to College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram.
Most of the scientists involved in the ISRO mission hail from the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu with their academics also being done from their home states.
P Veeramuthuvel, the Project Director, went to NIT Trichy; S. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, did his Btech from Kerala University; M Sankaran, Director, U R Rao Satellite Centre, did his Master's in Physics from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu; ; Muthayya Vanitha, Deputy Director, UR Rao Satellite Center, did her graduation from College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai.
Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, Senior scientist, ISRO, who is from the state of Uttar Pradesh, did her B. Sc. in Physics from the University of Lucknow and an M. Sc. in Physics from the same institute.
The ISRO released a video, on Saturday, of the Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan navigating the southern part of the Moon's surface, a feat only India has been able to achieve in the history of mankind.
PM Narendra Modi has changed the names for Moon's landing sites: "Shiv Shakti Point" for Chandrayaan 3 and "Tiranga Point" for Chandrayaan-2's crash site in new developments.
