BENGALURU: As the Vikram lander along with the Pragyan rover touched down on the south pole of the lunar surface signalling the success of the Chandrayaan-3 (CH-3) mission, and as the scientists in the command centre along with the whole nation broke into jubilation, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Sreedhara Panicker Somanath better known as S Somanath took to the dais.

He first announced that the CH-3 mission had successfully achieved the task, "We are on the moon," he started and then went on to introduce the three key team members of the CH-3 mission. 

While nearly all the major ISRO centres and units were in some or the other way involved in the design, development, testing and realization of the CH-3 mission and along with 27 other deputy project directors from different ISRO centres were involved in the whole process, three people were on the helm of affairs and they all shared the dias with Somanath. 

The team of the lunar mission was undoubtedly led by Somanath, an aerospace engineer serving as the chairman of the ISRO. Somanath is known for his contributions to launch vehicle design, particularly in the areas of launch vehicle systems engineering, structural design, structural dynamics, and pyrotechnics. He also served as the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. In the past, he was associated with the PSLV project and was the project director of GSLV Mk III in 2010.

Other than the team leader Somanath other members of the team included the Project Director of the CH-3 mission space scientist P Veeramuthuvel who joined ISRO in 2014 and in the past has worked on the Mars orbiter mission. He was instrumental in the Chandrayaan 2 mission, coordinating with NASA on the project's prospects and science. In 2019 succeeded Muthayya Vanitha, who oversaw the Chandrayaan-2 mission as its project director for the Chandrayaan 3 mission.

Second in command, Deputy Project Director Kalpana K an aerospace engineer from IIT, Kharagpur joined ISRO in 2003 and has been instrumental in the construction of various satellites of India including the successful launch of several communication and remote sensing satellites. She was involved in the Chandrayaan-2 and the Mars Orbiter Mission known as the Mangalyaan missions.

The third key member that Somanath introduced was Mission Operations Director M Srikanth, who has worked for ISRO for over two decades and his expertise spans across various missions, including Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2. Chandrayaan-3 mission is another feather in his cap.

Other key functionaries who were also present at the occasion were M Sankaran who is the director of U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru where the satellite was built, A Rajarajan, director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota from where the spacecraft took off and Nilesh M. Desai, director of Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad. 

Sankaran who was also present on the dias with the core team said, "We achieved what we started three years ago, them has been living, sleeping, and eating Chandrayaan last three four years."