Mylswamy Annadurai (born 2 July 1958) is a prominent Indian scientist serving as vice president for as Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology, Chairman, Board of Governors, National Design and Research Forum. He is often dubbed the "Moon Man of India". Before taking this assignment he was with Indian Space Research Organisation and served as director of the Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre. During his 36 years of service in the Indian Space Research Organisation, he had some of the major contributions, including two of the major missions of ISRO, namely Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan. Annadurai has been listed among the 100 Global thinkers of 2014 and topped the innovators list. His works are mentioned in textbooks of Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education.
Early life and education He was born on 2 July 1958, in Kothavadi in the Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu state of India. Annadurai had his schooling in his native village Kodhavady and nearby town Pollachi. He obtained a bachelor's degree in engineering (Electronics and Communication) in 1980 from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, and completed his master's degree in engineering during 1982 from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore and PhD from Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in India. He joined ISRO in 1982. As the mission director of INSAT missions, he made some of the original contributions to the INSAT systems maintenance.
Mars Orbiter Mission
India's first mission to Mars, the Mars Orbiter Mission, or Mangalyaan, reached the planet on 24 September 2014 completing its 300-day journey. While ISRO has been researching a Mars mission for many years, the project was only approved by the government in August 2012. ISRO took over a year to work on the spacecraft and bring the project to implementation stage. The Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on 5 November 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on the country's east coast. After travelling 670 million kilometres, Mangalyaan is now set to study the surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere to better understand the climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet. It is the most cost effective of all the missions sent to the planet by any other country costing India about $74 million.
Chandrayaan I & II
Chandrayaan-1 was India's first mission to the Moon launched by India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The uncrewed lunar exploration mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. India launched the spacecraft by a modified version of the PSLV C11 on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh about 80 km north of Chennai at 06:22 IST (00:52 UTC). The mission was a major boost to India's space program, and India joined a band of Asian nations (China and Japan) in exploring the Moon. The vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008.
During the period 2004–2008, as the project director for Chandrayaan I, he led a team of engineers and scientists that designed and developed the project to carry instrumentation from ISRO and from NASA, ESA, and Bulgaria to accomplish simultaneous chemical, mineralogical, resource and topographic mapping of the entire lunar surface at high spatial and spectral resolutions. The project was realised within the time frame stipulated and the budget granted. He has paved the way for the future of Indian planetary missions and set an example for international cooperation bringing international organisations like NASA, ESA, and JAXA to work under the leadership of ISRO. Chandrayaan I has received many national and international awards including, the Space Pioneers award for science and engineering at the 28th International conference on Space development, in Florida USA in 2009.
Director, ISRO Satellite Centre From 2015 to 2018 Annadurai was heading ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore as director. The centre is responsible for building satellites for communication, remote sensing, navigation, space science and interplanetary missions. In his tenure as Director of the centre he has overseen making, launching and operationalisation of 30 state of the art satellites.
Post retirement from ISRO In 2019 Mylswamy Annadurai was appointed as vice president for Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology. In the same year, he was also nominated as chairman, of the Board of Governors, National Design and Research Forum (NDRF) He uses both positions effectively for the development of science and technology both at the state and national level, starting from science outreach at school level to guiding some high-end collaborative research of social relevance by bringing together research labs, academia, industry and policymakers.
Films In the movie Mission Mangal based on India's Mars mission, the character of Akshay Kumar is inspired from Annadurai In the feature film Chandrayaan based on India's first Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 directed and produced by Santhosh George Kulangara, his and his family members' roles were enacted by south Indian cine artists.
Previous assignments During his 36 years of service in ISRO Dr Annadurai held various responsibilities. Prior to becoming the Centre Director, he served as programme director for IRS&SSS (Indian Remote Sensing & Small, Science and Student Satellites) that include Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2, ASTROSAT, Aditya-L1, Mars Orbiter Mission and many Indian Remote Sensing missions. He also contributed to India's National Communication satellite (INSAT) missions as the Mission Director. He was the member secretary of the task team that prepared Chandrayaan I project report. He is the author of several research papers in his specialization. Annadurai's career profile is as follows,
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