India missile women Tessy Thomas
Who Is The Missile Woman Of India ? “Gender does not matter. You work as a scientist, not as a woman” Tessy Thomas known as the ‘Missile Woman’ of India, is an scientist at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is the first ever woman scientist to head a missile project in India.Dr. Tessy Thomas Also known as ‘Agni Putri’, she is an eminent Indian scientist and the first ever woman scientist to lead a missile project in India.
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam appointed Dr. Tessy Thomas for the Agni Project. She was made the assistant project director of the Agni-III missile project and the project director of the Agni 4 missile project in 2011. She also worked as a project director for the Agni 5 missile in 2009.
She was appointed the Director-General of DRDO in 2018. With exceptional expertise in the field of solid propellent systems, she contributed to the development of a re-entry system for the missile to withstand greater temperatures and velocities of 3000 degrees celsius.
She has received a number of awards for her contributions to space technology in India.
she also joined Pune Institute Of Aviation Technology (IAT), as a faculty member in Guided Missiles in the year 1986. She joined DRDL, Hyderabad in 1988. She was associated with the ‘Agni Programme’ right from its developmental flights. She has designed the guidance scheme for long range missile systems which is used in all Agni missiles. An energy management guidance scheme was designed and developed for the first time in the country for a solid propelled long range systems. She was conferred with Agni Self Reliance award in the year 2001 for this achievement. She has contributed in various fields such as Guidance, Control, Inertial Navigation, Trajectory Simulation and Mission Design. She has lead the project ‘AGNI-4’ as Project Director, for a state-of-the-art system, with many new technologies for the first time and which was successfully flight tested and proven. She was also Project Director (Mission) for the long range ‘AGNI-5’ system, which was successfully flight tested and proven. As Director, Advanced Systems Laboratory, DRDO, she has held multi-dimensional roles and responsibilities and lead the development of strategic missile systems from 2014 to 2018.
award Dr. Thomas got – Dr. Thomas has received several prestigious awards for her work, including the ‘DRDO Scientist of the Year’, in 2008, DRDO Performance Excellence Award for 2011 and 2012, India Today Women of the Year award in 2009, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2012, CNN-IBN Indian of the Year in 2012, Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya Award in 2016, and Outstanding Woman Achiever Award by Women in Science and Engineering (WISE). (Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology).
Big inspiration for girl and women – A woman like Tessy is not just an example of excellence but also someone who breaks free from societal stigmas and pursues their dreams.
A trailblazer for women in technology, she was not afraid to stand up and voice her opinion in an area of extreme conflict and took the risk of standing up for her morals, ethics, and values. She grew up in an atmosphere where educating a girl child was considered to be a massive feat that any Indian parent performed.
However, she defied defined the ‘limits’ society had set and paved the way to define her own bounds. She has set an example of how important a role dedication and hard work play in developing an idea. Tessy Thomas is the quintessential role model for all those women aspiring to be a scientist. More power to her!
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