Who is Ritu Karidhal, the woman behind ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its third moon exploration mission — Chandrayaan-3 at 2.35pm on Friday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The mission's objective is to explore the south pole of the moon.

The mission launched on ISRO's GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle. LVM-3 is a composite of propulsion, lander and rover. The lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. If the landing is successful, India will become the fourth country to achieve this, after the United States, Russia, and China.

Dr Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, one of the senior scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is leading the mission.

Who is Ritu Karidhal?

Ritu Karidhal was the Mission Director of Chandrayaan-2 and the Deputy Operations Director of Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). She is popularly known as the rocket woman of India.

Karidhal has been born and brought up in Lucknow. She pursued her BSc in Physics from the Lucknow University. She then received her ME degree in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science (IISc). She joined ISRO in 1997.

Dr Ritu has received the 'ISRO Young Scientist Award' by former President APJ Abdul Kalam. She has also received 'ISRO Team Award for MOM in 2015', 'ASI Team Award', 'Women Achievers in Aerospace, 2017' by Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies & Industries (SIATI).

As per the World Economic Forum, Karidhal has always been fascinated by space and has wanted to do something different. She used to collect paper cuttings of ISRO and NASA news reports.

Karidhal has published over 20 papers in national and international journals.