Chandrayaan 2 Launch | Meet India's 'Moon' -Chandrakanta Kumar, the Bengali farmer's son instrumental for setting India on its way to the Moon

While India's Chandrayaan 2 successfully liftoff on Monday and orbits around the Earth, on the way to the lunar surface, there is one other moon on the earth who was instrumental in putting India on the Moon - Chandrayaan 2's Deputy Project Director Chandrakanta Kumar.

Early beginnings and qualifications:

Born to farmer Madhusudhan Kumar in Shibpur village in West Bengal's Hooghly district, Madhusudhan wanted to name his fisrt born after the sun- Suryakant, a per reports. But on being advised to name him 'Chandrakanta' after the Earth's natural satellite by a village school teacher, Chandrakanta had already made his tryst with his 'moon' destiny.

After completing his engineering, he completed his M.Tech and PhD from Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics , Kolkata - working on the Defected Ground Structure (DGS) integrated micro-strip patch antennas and Dielectric Resonator Antennas.

Chandrakanta, a hardworking student, joined ISRO as an engineer in 2001 and soon rocketed up the ranks to become the Deputy Project Director of Chandrayaan 2. 

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Here are his various astonishing achievements, according to Research Gate:

• Designed antenna systems for numerous Indian satellites and ground stations
• Served as project manager, antenna systems, for Chandrayaan-1, GSAT-12 and ASTROSAT
• Currently is the Deputy Project Director of Chandrayaan 2, responsible for the RF system of Chandrayaan-2 and heads the 'Electromagnetics' Section of UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC)
• Supervised two M Tech Thesis and guiding two students for their doctoral research
• Presently Fellow of IETE India; Senior Member IEEE, US; Life Member of ASI, India

Here are the various awards bestowed upon him:

• Hari Ramji Toshniwal Award-2018
• Prof. S. N. Mitra Memorial Award-2011’ of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineer (IETE)
• Young Scientist Award-2009
• ‘Team Excellence Award-2008’ of ISRO
• Has 95 research items and 772 citations

Even though his father claimed that he had no time to teach his son due to his constant toiling away in the fields, his parents are immensely proud of their son's achievements, as per reports. Coincidentally, Chandrakanta's brother Shashikant is also a scientist at the Indian space agency (ISRO).

The current ISRO chairman Dr. Kailasavadivoo Sivan too is a Tamil Nadu farmer's son. He is fondly known as 'Rocket Man' for his significant contribution to the development of cryogenic engines, for India's space program.

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Chandrayaan -2:

Chandrayaan-2's rocket lifted off at the scheduled time of 2:43 PM on July 22. The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 3, 84, 000 km. Vikram lander will land on Moon on the 48th day of the mission starting from Monday. This moon-lander and rover mission proves that India is taking lead in space exploration as its mission aims to investigate the unexplored south pole of the moon. With Chandrayaan-2 India aims at the soft landing on the Moon. If successful, it will be the fourth country after the US, Russia, and China to do so.