No Gender Bias At ISRO, Only Talent Matters: Woman Behind Aditya L1 Mission

Her disarming smile could even make the fiery Sun go tame. She is a worthy daughter of a mathematics graduate who turned to farming by choice, and is leading India's Aditya L-1 satellite.

Nigar Shaji is a scientist at the UR Rao Satellite Centre, part of ISRO, in Bengaluru and is the project director for India's first space-based solar observatory. She is one of many women who have led teams at the Indian space agency to make complex satellite missions.

It has been an over four-month-long marathon in space where Aditya L1 traversed more than 3.7 million km in a circuitous path to finally be able to do a continuous "celestial surya namaskar" and study the Sun on an uninterrupted basis.

Only a handful of countries have ventured to make space-based solar observatories, says Ms Shaji, so India joins a select club.

Contrary to what many believe that there is a gender bias at the Department of Space, Ms Shaji told NDTV "there is no glass ceiling for women at ISRO". She says at ISRO, only talent matters, and gender plays no role.

She is among the many 'sheroes' at ISRO. Earlier, M Vanitha led the Chandrayaan-2 mission and Thenmozhi Selvi K led the making of the Earth-imaging satellite. More recently, Kalpana K took charge as deputy project director of the highly successful ongoing Chandrayaan-3 mission. On the shop floor and clean rooms of ISRO, men and women work shoulder-to-shoulder to bring glory for India.

"Aditya is a complex scientific satellite," says Ms Nigar, who has worked on it tirelessly for nine years. "Working with many Indian scientific institutions that have such diverse work cultures posed a special challenge," she says. Behind her smiling and gentle demeanour, Ms Nigar acknowledges scientists consider her a "tough person".

It was her father who inspired her to become an engineer, she says. Ms Nigar's father Sheik Meeran was a mathematics graduate who took to farming by choice. Growing up in the rural Sengottai in Tenkasi district of Tamil Nadu, Ms Nigar heard about the successes of the Nobel laureate Marie Curie, which gave her the courage to take up a job with the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Her early education was in a government school. She went on to study at the Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli, a part of Madurai Kamaraj University, for her engineering degree in electronics and communications. Later, she did masters in electronics from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra.

Ms Nigar says her family wanted her to become a doctor, but she chose to be an engineer. According to her profile at the Indian Space Research Organisation Ms Shaji is currently programme director, lower Earth orbit and planetary missions, and is responsible for the development of all the ISRO-developed low-earth orbiting spacecraft and interplanetary missions.

She is also the project director of the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, the first Indian space-based solar observatory at Sun-Earth Lagrangian point for solar studies.

She started her career as a spacecraft test engineer, and travelled through the cascades of career ladder with illustrious contributions. She holds additional responsibility as study director for the mission to Venus and EXO world mission for the study of planets beyond the solar system.

Aditya L1 is on its long journey closer to the Sun and it checks in at its destination today. After a nearly 126-day journey, Aditya will be made to settle down in an orbit 1.5 million km from Earth, from where it will have a continuous view of the Sun.

ISRO says Aditya is healthy and scientific results have already started coming. Aditya is a satellite that will help give forewarnings as to when is the Sun going to get angry.

Ms Nigar has advice for aspiring youngsters who want to work in the charismatic field of space technology - having a solid support system at home since hours can be long when one works on complex interplanetary missions. In her case, her mother gave her that support.