Muthayya Vanitha is the Project Director of Chandrayaan-2.
She is the first woman to lead the interplanetary mission at ISRO. She was
promoted from Associate Director to Project Director of the mission. She hails
from Chennai and is an electronics system engineer from the College of
Engineering, Guindy.
She has worked at ISRO for over three decades. She started
as a junior engineer in hardware testing and development and has risen up the ladder steadily. She has occupied several
roles such as leading the Telemetry and Telecommand Divisions in the Digital
Systems Group of ISRO Satellite Centre, and has been the Deputy Project
Director for several satellites including Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2, and
Megha-Tropiques. . Previously she has also managed data operations for remote
sensing satellites. In 2006, she
received the Best Woman Scientist Award.