Meet The Young Muslim Scientists, Engineers Who Contributed To India’s Moon Mission Success

Syed Khalique Ahmed

NEW DELHI—Meet some of the Muslim scientists and engineers who contributed to India’s moon mission success.

Together with other scientists, they played an important role in the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 project team that wrote a new history in the world of space science and technology, bringing immense laurels to the country.

Because of our scientists, India now ranks with the US, Russia, and China – countries that have mastered in spacecraft technology. It would not be wrong to say that India has emerged as one of the “Vishwa Guru” (world leaders) in spacecraft science.

READ ALSO: Chandrayaan-3 Hero and ISRO Chairman S Somanath Studied At Kerala’s Oldest Private Engineering College Run By A Muslim Trust

Here are the names and brief biodata of the few Muslims scientists who were part of the Chandrayaan-3 team.

*SANA FIROZ, a B.Tech. (2006-2010) in electronics and communications engineering from Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology at Gorakhpur in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, is among the 54 female scientists and engineers who contributed to the success of the Chandrayaan-3.

Sana, who hails from the small town of Mau, neighbouring Azamgarh, has been working with ISRO at Mohali since 2013.

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*Sana’s husband YASSER AMMAR, also a B.Tech.(2006-2010) in electronics and communications engineering from Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology at Gorakhpur in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, was also in the Chandrayaan-3 project team. Yasser is a native of Gorakhpur, the hometown of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Yasser also works at ISRO’s Mohali facility.

Yasser, who has been working with ISRO since 2010, has written several research papers, including one on “Design and development of Silicon Photomultiplier for Photon Counting Applications” published in the Journal of Spacecraft Technology, a prestigious research journal published by ISRO.

*MOHAMMED SABIR ALAM, is another engineer, who played an important role in the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Holding a B Tech degree inaerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), he has been working at ISRO’s Thiruvananthapuram centre since 2018.

*AREEB AHMAD, a B.Tech in mechanical engineering (2015-19 batch) from Jamia Millia Islamia, is a young scientist who contributed immensely to the success of the Chandrayaan-3. He hails from Muzaffarnagar district of UP which witnessed one of India’s worst communal riots in August-September 2013 that resulted in 42 Muslims and 20 Hindus being killed. More than 50,000 Muslims were displaced many of whom have yet not returned to their original homes and villages. Posted at ISRO’s Sriharikota facility, Areeb was part of an inspection team before the Chandrayaan-3 was launched in July 14, 2023. The spacecraft landed at the lunar south pole region of the moon on August 23, 2023, in a span of six weeks.

*AKHTEDAR ABBAS, a native of the Gonda district in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and posted at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, also worked with the Chandrayaan-3 project, bringing immense pride to the nation. A B.Tech (2006-2010) from Aligarh Muslim University and an M.Tech from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, he has been working with ISRO since March 2015. Before joining ISRO, he worked as a professor at the DIT University in Dehradun and Operations Manager at Indian Oil Corporation Limited.

*ISHRAT JAMAL, who was also associated with the Chandrayaan-3 project, is a  B Tech in electrical engineering from AMU and an M Tech in Power and Control from IIT, Kanpur. He has been working with ISRO for the last six years. He is currently posted at ISRO’s research facility in Bengaluru.

“I am a power electronics engineer with experience in the design and development of space qualified Electronic Power Conditioners (EPCs)/Power Supplies for various Radio Frequency (RF) subsystems, such as Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs) and Travelling Wave Tube Amplifiers (TWTAs), of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payloads,” he says in a post on a social media platform.

From Aligarh to the Moon. The incredible journey of AMU alumni like Priyanshu Varshney, Ishrat Jamal, and Khushboo Mirza, contributing to Chandrayaan-3's historic lunar landing, inspires us all! #AMUAlumni #Chandrayaan3 #LunarLandingSuccess @AMUofficialPRO @mmsbeg @khansh

— AMU Network (@AMUNetwork) August 24, 2023

*Khushboo Mirza, is another Muslim woman scientist, who was involved in the Chandrayaan-3 project. She is a B.Tech. in Electronics Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University and works at the ISRO centre in Greater Noida.

She is an experienced scientist skilled in ArcGIS products. ArcGIS is a family of client, server, and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute). Esri is an American multinational geographic information system software company.

*Another Muslim engineer involved in the Chandrayaan-3 mission is Mohd Kashif, a B Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia. He joined ISRO at its Bengaluru centre in December 2021. He obtained the top rank in ISRO recruitment in 2021.

Some scientists and engineers like Amit Bhardwaj who have passed out from Jamia Millia Islamia, and Priyanshu Varshney and Sonali Jain from AMU were also in the Chandrayaan-3 team.

*SONALI JAIN, a B.Tech in Electrical and eletronics Engineering from AMU and MTech from IIT Kanpur, has been working with ISRO since May 2017. She, too, was a part of the Chandrayaan-3 that had 54 women scientists. Before joinging ISRO, she worked as Systems Engineer in Tata Consultancy Services.

Her skills are in Electronics · Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC). Here are full details of her expertise:

-Experience in Digital system designs and board fabrication. Performed functional testing at different stages of component mounting of flight model cards. Design, development and realization of Microcontroller based on-board digital subsystems.

-Developed, simulated and debugged C code for in-house developed, 8051 based OBC ASIC, using Keil uvision 4.
-Developed different LabView, MATLAB and C# based Ground Check-out Units for testing and verification of the subsystems.
-Designed and developed digital subsystems and performed their thorough verification using VHDL testbench and simulation tools like iSim, Model Sim.
-Good Knowledge of interfaces like RS232, RS485, RS 422 and UART. Well acquainted with MIL- STD-1553 bus architecture. –Developed C code for tele commanding and receiving telemetry using MIL-STD-1553 bus protocol.
-Hands on experience of using measurement instruments like Oscilloscope and Logic Analyzer.
-Experience in schematic design using cadstar.