THE IDEATOR

M Annadurai

MYLESWAMY Annadurai has been working 18-hour days for a while now. Beginning at 6 am, the 47-year-old engineer starts networking with scientists in countries as they wake up: Japan, India, Bulgaria, Germany, Sweden, the UK and, finally, the east and west coasts of the US.

The scale is justifiable: Annadurai is project director for Chandrayaan-I, responsible for building the spacecraft, integrating the 11 instruments and getting all systems going right up to the moon.

Since joining ISRO in 1992, Annadurai has managed missions for all the subsequent INSAT-series communication satellites launches. In 2004, the Masters in Engineering from PSG Tech, Coimbatore, was the assistant project director for the Edusat launch.

‘‘I have approached all my assignments in the same way, but Chandrayaan-I tops them all,’’ he says.

Keeping the satellite’s weight within target limits and building it on schedule, while accommodating all the identified instruments without compromising quality—that’s the major challenge ahead, says Annadurai.

‘‘The thermal environment 100 km around the moon is quite different from that around the earth. So the thermal design for Chandrayaan-I is different from that of INSATs and IRS-type spacecraft,’’ he explains. ‘‘Communication, too, is a challenge, since the distance from the moon is 10 times that with a geo-stationary spacecraft.’’

THE INVESTIGATOR

J N Goswami

TWENTY-odd years after joining Ahmedabad’s Physical Research Laboratory to research the origins of the solar system, J N Goswami is the principal scientific investigator on India’s’ first moon mission.

He is part of the team that decided on the kind of instruments and research to be undertaken by the mission. It’s his responsibility to ensure all 11 instruments (including the five Indian ones) to go on board the Chandrayaan-I are ready by August 2007, properly calibrated and compatible with data recording systems.

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