As India celebrates the Chandrayaan-3 milestone, the gaze has turned to the team of scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation which made the mission possible.
In a conversation with The News Minute’s Korah Abraham, Unnikrishnan Nair, the director of ISRO unit VSSC, and Padma Kumar ES, the director of the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit, spoke about the implications of the landing success on India’s space missions and the general public.
Asked whether the team was apprehensive considering the failure of Chandrayaan-2, Padma Kumar said, “Not really because we were very sure about the Chandrayaan-3 design on which we had invested so much effort… we were not really worried.”
Unnikrishan Nair said that it “reminds us that these kinds of missions are very very complex”. Speaking on the collapse of Russia’s Luna-25, he said, “Russia this time, they missed it, we could make it. Last time, we missed it. As a scientific community, we are very sad that Russia’s Luna lost its target.”
On the road ahead, the VSSC director said, “The idea is to gather maximum information with all the payloads… it will be used by the scientific community.”
Padma Kumar said, “The mission to study the Sun is already in the pipeline… Coming behind it is the Gaganyaan mission… First step is going to the orbit and coming back safely. Maybe next year, the first uncrewed mission of Gaganyaan will be there.”
Watch.
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