From being an average student to becoming the driving force behind the success of Chandrayaan-3. This is the story of the Project Director of Chandrayaan 3, Dr P Veeramuthuvel, who made the whole world aware of India’s potential.
P Veeramuthuvel grew up in a simple family in Villupuram district. He went to a government school and considered himself an average student with no clear idea about what he wanted to do in the future. His family didn’t have much of an educational background.
After finishing school, he decided to take a diploma course in Mechanical Engineering with his friends. Surprisingly, he, who was just an average student before, ended up scoring really well, getting over 90 percent. This happened because he found a strong interest in engineering.
Because P Veeramuthuvel did really well in his studies, Veeramuthuvel got a merit seat at Sri Sriram Engineering College to study for a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E). In every semester, he was either the first or second in his class. He didn’t achieve this by studying all the time but by making sure he really understood what he was learning.
Because of his great academic performance, he got a chance to join the Regional Engineering College in Trichy for a Master of Engineering (M.E). Again, he did really well and graduated with a high score.
After finishing his studies, he got a job as a senior engineer at Lakshmi Machine Works in Coimbatore. Even while working, he didn’t forget his love for aerospace.
A few years down the line, his dream of getting a job at ISRO came knocking on the door. He joined India’s premier space agency as a project engineer and went on to become the project manager.
Even with a busy job, P Veeramuthuvel kept up with his academic research. He joined IIT-Madras and earned a PhD in ‘Vibration Suppression of Electronic Package in Satellites.’ His research got published in important journals and was presented at international conferences.
Following this, he got the chance to lead ISRO’s first nanosatellite team and launched three such satellites.
This led to him being named the associate project director for the prestigious Chandrayaan-2 project and, subsequently, appointed as the project director for Chandrayaan-3, for which he led a huge team.
Do you happen to know of other scientists who played a role in the Chandrayaan-3 mission? Let us know in the comments section below.
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