CARVING HER SPACE

Meet some of the minds behind India’s first women-only satellite payload

- NIRMAL JOVIAL

As PSLV-C58 took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota this January 1, the aspirations of an all-woman crew, too, soared with it. For, it carried a 1.5kg satellite payload, called the Women Engineered Satellite (WESAT), which is designed to gauge ultraviolet rays and solar irradiance in both space and on earth's surface, examining their impact on rising temperatures and climate change in Kerala. "WESAT is India's first women-only satellite payload," says Lizy Abraham, 40, assistant professor at LBS Institute of Technology for Women in Thiruvananthapuram (the first engineering college in Kerala exclusively for women) and principal investigator of the WESAT mission. "Except for the Indian Space Research Organisation's support to launch, we used only the potential of the students of LBS Institute of Technology for Women." WESAT is the baby of the college's 43-member space club.