IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Bangalore Chapter & IEEE Bangalore Section jointly celebrated International women’s day 2023 and honored women in communication. This year Chaitra Rao who is working in Programme Management and Systems Group, U R Rao Satellite Centre, URSC was felicitated. URSC is a center where satellites are designed, integrated, tested, and shipped to launch pads for launch. The event consisted of a well-knit Q&A session named “Meet-the-Achiever” that covered a range of topics from her experience at Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO over a range of projects (especially the Mars orbiter mission), work-life balance, and her research initiatives. Gnanapriya C, Senior IEEE member, Bangalore ComSoc Chapter Execom member, facilitated the discussion and live interaction. Chaitra was felicitated by our IEEE ComSoc chair Anindya Saha, Vice Chair Dr. Sujatha, Execom Senior Members Subhas, Gnanapriya, Dr. Sheeba, and Dr. Shushrutha.
Bangalore ComSoc and section was very fortunate to have Chaitra Rao for the Women’s Day celebrations. A very inspiring journey! Passion is very key to be successful, when ignited in early years, it can do wonders. Chaitra’s visit to ISRO during her school days created an impact, which nurtured her to pursue her future in ISRO.
She shared her experiences from varied key roles she played across missions. India’s first Interplanetary mission made ISRO the 4th space agency to achieve Mars orbit, Mars Orbiter Mission which had 20 women scientists out of 90 in total and made significant contributions. Chaitra as the Spacecraft Operations Manager, MOM, ISRO Satellites Centre (ISAC), had to spend long hours before the launch of the mission and had full support from her family. She shared her experiences in the Planning and Scheduling of payloads during Initial and normal phase observations for India’s first astronomical space observatory, Astrosat. She also called out the contributions done by ISRO for the societal benefits, Digital India drive. She remembered “Missile Man of India,” Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam being with the core team, wishing and encouraging them.
Meet the Achiever session was attended by Professionals from industry, academia, researchers, and students. Chaitra addressed the questions that came from the audience on varied topics, Satellites, Digital India, Radiation, Capacity & Coverage, Societal contributions, Work Life balance, teamwork and many more. The audience found this lively interaction very inspiring.
As a concluding remark, she encouraged young engineers to embrace Core Engineering and be part of “Aatma-Nirbhar-Bharat” drives.