Indian women are clearly no longer the ‘sidekicks’ when it comes to India’s space programme. Former director of the ISRO satellite centre in Bengaluru, Dr M Annadurai, echoes the sentiments of many when he points out, “It is good to see more and more women taking up leadership roles and this will continue in future missions of ISRO as well.”

For fact is, while women have led various satellite launches in the past, in a first both the mission director and project director of this noteworthy Rs.978 crore mission are women.

According to ISRO Chairman K Sivan, women comprise 30% of the team working on Chandrayaan-2. This is heartening news considering that according to UIS data, the percentage of female world researchers pursuing careers in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) is less than 30%.