Mylswamy Annadurai


Mylswamy Annadurai, popularly known as Moon Man of India, is an Indian scientist working as vice president for Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology, Chairman, Board of Governors, National Design and Research Forum. Prior to taking this assignment he was with Indian Space Research Organisation and served as director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore. During his 36 years of service in ISRO, he had some of the major contributions, including two of the major missions of ISRO, namely Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan. Annadurai has been listed among 100 Global thinkers of 2014 and topped the innovators list. His works are mentioned in textbooks of Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education

Early life and education

Annadurai had his schooling in his native village Kodhawady. He has obtained a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1980 from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, and completed his master's degree in engineering during 1982 from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore and Ph.D. from Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in India. He joined ISRO in 1982. As the mission director of INSAT missions, he had some of the original contributions to the INSAT systems maintenance.

Mars Orbiter Mission

India's first mission to Mars, the Mars Orbiter Mission, or Mangalyaan, reached the planet on 24 September 2014 completing its 300-day journey. While ISRO has been researching for a Mars mission for many years, the project was only approved by the government in August 2012. ISRO took over a year to work on the spacecraft and bring the project to implementation stage. The Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on 5 November 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on the country's east coast. After travelling 670 million kilometres, Mangalyaan is now set to study the surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere to better understand the climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet. It is the most cost effective of all the missions sent to the planet by any other country costing India about $74 million.

Chandrayaan I & II

Chandrayaan-1, was India's first mission to the Moon launched by India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation. The unmanned lunar exploration mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. India launched the spacecraft by a modified version of the PSLV C11 on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh about 80 km north of Chennai at 06:22 IST. The mission was a major boost to India's space program, and India joined a band of Asian nations in exploring the Moon. The vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008.
During the period 2004–2008, as the project director for Chandrayaan I, he led a team of engineers and scientists that designed and developed the project to carry instrumentation from ISRO and from NASA, ESA, and Bulgaria to accomplish simultaneous chemical, mineralogical, resource and topographic mapping of the entire lunar surface at high spatial and spectral resolutions. The project was realised within the time frame stipulated and the budget granted. He has paved the way for the future of Indian planetary missions and set an example for the international co-operation bringing the reputed international organisations like NASA, ESA, JAXA to work under the leadership of ISRO. Chandrayaan I has received many national and international awards including, the coveted Space Pioneers award for science and engineering at 28th International conference on Space development, in Florida USA in 2009.
2015 to 2018 Annadurai was heading ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore as director. The centre is responsible for building state of the art satellites for communication, remote sensing, navigation, space science and interplanetary missions.
In 2019 Annadurai has been appointed as vice president for Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology.

Previous assignments

Prior to that, he was working as programme director for IRS&SSS that include Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2, ASTROSAT, Aditya-L1, Mars Orbiter Mission and many Indian Remote Sensing missions. He also contributed to India's National Communication satellite missions as the Mission Director. He was the member secretary of the task team that prepared Chandrayaan I project report. He is the author of several research papers in his specialization.
Annadurai's career profile is as follow,
During his holidays, Annadurai tours across the country to meet and interact with the students to encourage them to study science.

Awards and achievements

Annadurai has received more than hundred awards, that include,

Awards From Government


Annadurai's publications and works are being widely referred by satellite operator's, one of his work has been referred in a US patent..
He has written five books in Tamil namely,
The Book" Kaiyaruke Nila" has won S. P. Adithanar Literary award for the year 2013.