“Can you guide a spacecraft into orbit around Mars and cook for eight
people morning and night? Yes, if you get up at 5am, and your name is BP
Dakshayani. Here the former head of flight dynamics and space
navigation for the Indian space agency explains how she did it – and the
housework too.“
I’m very glad to see this hard-working space engineer being recognized in a BBC’s story by Geeta Pandey.
“They became known as the Rocket Women or the Women from Mars. Four years
ago, the picture of a group of women in saris celebrating as an Indian
spacecraft successfully entered Mars orbit shone a light on the role
played by women in the country’s space programme – among them BP
Dakshayani.”
Getty Images
“She led the team that kept an eye on the satellite, telling it
exactly where to go, and ensuring that it did not deviate from its path.
One
of her colleagues (also female) described the task as like hitting a
golf ball in India and expecting it to go into a hole in Los Angeles – a
hole, moreover, that was constantly moving.
It was a tough job
made tougher by the responsibilities of an Indian wife. But her strength
of will had become obvious many years earlier, when the girl from a
“quite traditional, conservative and orthodox” family set her sights on a
career in science.”
Big Mean Sweaty Dyke 