Mars on the first attempt. The Moon’s South Pole for the first time in history. Meet the scientist who made both happen.
Some people look up at the night sky and see darkness. Ritu Karidhal looked up and saw her future. From a middle-class household in Lucknow, with no coaching centres, no special resources, and no blueprint to follow, she gazed at the moon night after night and asked herself questions that would one day take India to Mars and back to the moon. This week, WorkWellWomenia celebrates a woman who didn’t just break the glass ceiling; she launched past it at 23,500 kilometres per hour.
Table of Contents
A career that literally reached the stars
Ritu joined ISRO in November 1997 after completing her M.Sc. in Physics from Lucknow University and her M.Tech. in Aerospace Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. What followed was a career that would redefine what Indian women could achieve in science.
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Mangalyaan (2013–14)
Deputy Operations Director, Mars Orbiter Mission — India’s first interplanetary mission
Chandrayaan-2 (2019)
Mission Director for India’s second lunar exploration mission
Chandrayaan-3 (2023)
Led India to become the first country to soft-land on the lunar South Pole
The brain of Mangalyaan
Designed the spacecraft’s autonomy system — built in a record 10 months
ISRO Young Scientist Award
Presented by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2007
Research output
Over 20 papers published in national and international journals
Ritu Karidhal’s most celebrated contribution to Mangalyaan was engineering the spacecraft’s autonomous decision-making system, essentially its brain. Because of the vast distances involved, ground commands could take up to 20 minutes to reach the craft. The system she built allowed the orbiter to detect and correct errors on its own, in real time. It was a feat of engineering that helped make India the first nation to reach Mars on its very first attempt, and it was done on a budget of just ₹450 crore, less than the production cost of many Hollywood films. Bollywood took note too: the 2019 film Mission Mangal saw actress Vidya Balan portray her story to millions.
Her other honours include the ISRO Team Award for MOM (2015), the Women Achievers in Aerospace Award by the Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies & Industries (2017), the Bharat Asmita Vigyan-Tantragyaan Shreshtha Award from MIT World Peace University (2023), the UP Gaurav Samman from the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (2024), and an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Lucknow University.
The quiet battles behind the headlines
Growing up without resources. Ritu Karidhal had no coaching institutes, no private tutors, and no well-worn path to follow. She relied entirely on self-motivation, newspapers, and whatever science articles she could find. In hindsight, the absence of a roadmap became the foundation of her resilience.
Navigating a male-dominated field. When she joined ISRO in 1997, women were far fewer in the organisation. Despite being assigned some of the most technically demanding work, often because of her qualifications, she had to prove herself repeatedly in a field that was not built with women in mind.
The impossible work-life equation. During the 18 months of the Mars Orbiter Mission, Ritu’s schedule was relentless. She would return home from ISRO, help her children with their homework, and then work again from midnight to 4 a.m. She did this repeatedly, sometimes going without sleep for two to three consecutive days, driven purely by the fear of missing a critical window in space.
The weight of a nation’s expectations. As Mission Director of Chandrayaan-2 and then Chandrayaan-3, Ritu carried the hopes of 1.4 billion people. When the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 had an unplanned touchdown, the entire country watched. She persevered, and Chandrayaan-3 rewrote history.
What her story means for all of us
Ritu Karidhal’s story is not just about space science. It is about a girl from Lucknow who had a dream bigger than her circumstances and who refused to let the size of the dream intimidate her. She didn’t have the perfect starting conditions. She had something better: an unshakeable sense of purpose and the willingness to do the quiet, unglamorous work that no one sees, the midnight hours, the self-doubt, and the endless iterations to get to the moment that everyone celebrates.
She has spoken openly about how her family’s support, her husband sharing equally in household responsibilities, and her children cheering her on made her career possible. In doing so, she holds up a mirror to what support structures for ambitious women must look like: not just inspiration from afar, but partnership up close. She often acknowledges her team, which includes many women, and has actively worked to highlight the contributions of women scientists, bringing them into the spotlight they rightfully deserve.
To every woman who has ever felt that her dream is too large for her circumstances: Ritu Karidhal once stared at the moon from a courtyard in Lucknow and wondered why it changed shape. Decades later, she sent a spacecraft to land on it, on the South Pole, where no country had ever gone before. What is the dream you are holding right now? It is not too big. It is just waiting for the same quiet, fierce determination she brought to hers.
“There weren’t too many women in ISRO when I joined. But I was never treated differently because of my gender. What matters here is your talent, not your gender.”