CHENNAI: See a simple man named P Veeramuthuvel, who is the one who led the Chandrayaan-3 project, which aimed to land on the Moon. When the big boss of India's space agency, ISRO, announced that India had made it to the Moon, Veeramuthuvel was right there, looking humble and down-to-earth.
Now, let's shift our attention to a place called Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, not too far from ISRO's main office. In this place, an older man named Palanivel lives. He used to work for the railways, and he was watching his TV, excited to see India do something amazing—land a spacecraft called Chandrayaan-3 softly on the Moon's South Pole. When this actually happened and the ISRO scientists were clapping and jumping with happiness, Palanivel couldn't hold back his tears. He was happy not just because India had reached the Moon, but also because his son, Veeramuthuvel, was the person in charge of making Chandrayaan-3 happen.
Imagine the moment when a machine named 'Vikram' from Chandrayaan-3 gently touched the Moon's surface. ISRO's big boss, S Somanath, proudly told the whole world, "India is on the Moon!" And right there next to him was Veeramuthuvel, who led the Chandrayaan-3 project, standing with a simple and down-to-earth attitude.
Veeramuthuvel's journey to becoming a top scientist in India is pretty inspiring. He came from a simple family in Villupuram. When he was in school, he was just an average student and didn't know what he wanted to do in the future. His family didn't have a history of going to college either.
But things changed after school. He decided to learn about Mechanical Engineering, and surprisingly, he did really well—getting more than 90 percent marks! That's because he found engineering interesting and put in a lot of effort.
Because of his excellent performance, he got into Sri Sriram Engineering College with a scholarship and studied Bachelor of Engineering. Every semester, he was one of the top students, not because he studied all the time, but because he really understood what he was learning.
He kept going--got a Master's degree in Engineering, worked as an engineer in a company in Coimbatore, and then learned about a job at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bengaluru. He took the chance and became a design engineer there.
After a while, he got the opportunity he had been dreaming of: a job at ISRO. He started as a project engineer and eventually became the project manager.
So, when we talk about Chandrayaan-3's success, it's not just about a spacecraft landing on the Moon. It's about a regular guy, Veeramuthuvel, who worked really hard and followed his passion to become a key player in India's incredible space journey.
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