Muthayya Vanitha is an Indian electronics system engineer who has worked on satellite projects at the Indian Space Research Organization. She was the first woman project director at ISRO and has led the Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission.
Wiki/Biography
Muthayya Vanitha was born on Sunday, 2 August 1964 (59 years; as of 2023) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She finished her schooling at Boiler Plant School, Trichy. Later, she graduated from the College of Engineering, Guindy. She is a professional design engineer.
College of Engineering, Guindy from where Muthayya Vanitha graduated
Physical Appearance
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
Her father was a civil engineer.
Husband
Vanitha is married and has a son.
Career
After joining ISRO in 1987, Vanitha started as a junior engineer and worked in the field of hardware testing and development. Later, she became the project director and led the Telemetry and Telecommand Divisions in the Digital Systems Group of ISRO Satellite Centre. She also served as a deputy project director and handled the data operations for several satellites including Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2, and Megha-Tropiques. Vanitha was also part of the Mangalyaan mission to Mars in 2013, which was a success. ((News 18))
Muthayya Vanitha at an event organised by ISRO
Chandrayaan-2
Vanitha was promoted to project director from the associate director for this mission, making her the first female project director of the ISRO. Earlier, she was reluctant to take this huge responsibility but was later persuaded by the previous Chandrayaan-1 project director, Mylswamy Annadurai, who got her on board said,
Vanitha is an expert in data handling. She was comfortable in her digital/ hardware section and was hesitant to move to the role of a project director. This role not only involves nearly 18 hours of work a day, but is also in the national limelight bringing heavy responsibility of its own.” ((News 18))
Chandrayaan-2 aimed to land a probe on the Moon unlike Chandrayaan-1 and was launched successfully on 22 July 2019.
Chandrayaan-2 launched successfully
Awards & Achievements
- Best Woman Scientist by the Astronomical Society of India in 2006
- Noted as one of five scientists to watch by Nature in 2019
- Vanitha was awarded 25 lakh rupees by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin, along with the other scientists in 2023.
Muthayya Vanitha (Left) along with other scientists and Chief Minister M. K. Stalin
Facts/Trivia
- Vanitha likes to do gardening in her free time.
- Vanitha likes to cook new dishes for her family at home.
