The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind for Subhradip Ghosh. The South Kolkata Garia lad, who studied at IIT Guwahati and joined ISRO in 2019, was part of the team that scripted history on Wednesday as Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon’s South Pole — making India the first country to achieve the feat.
Speaking exclusively to News18, Ghosh said he was awestruck as Vikram Lander made the final touchdown.
“The last 15 minutes can be termed as pure terror. There were multiple phases like rough braking, altitude hold, fine braking and terminal descent. The excitement and tension was through the roof. All the hard work of the past four years came down to the final 15 minutes. We were anxious and nervous but still confident,” said Ghosh who has been a part of 15 ISRO missions.
The young scientist, who did his schooling from Patha Bhaban school, said when the Lander finally landed, there was a sense of contentment. “But I could only speak and get back to my senses after a couple of minutes. I was awestruck and so was everyone around me.”
Ghosh said he called his parents to Sriharikota to witness the historic moment. “The last few moments were full of anxiety because we had failed once after coming too close. But when the touchdown velocity became zero and Vikram landed on the Moon safely, we could finally breathe,” he said.
The scientist said he wanted to thank the country as well as the Department of Space for providing the budget for Chandrayaan-3 despite the failure of Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.
For now, Ghosh is flooded with calls and social media messages as he tries to come to terms with his newfound stardom. When he was studying MTech in IIT Guwahati, Ghosh had made a device to detect diabetes from a human tear drop. Even then, the young scientist would never have thought that he would one day be part of the team that fulfils India’s space dream.
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