This story is part of “India Invented This?” — The Better India’s weekly trivia series that uncovers the Indian minds, ideas and innovations behind inventions that have shaped the way we live. From ingenious solutions created by scientists and engineers to technologies developed in response to some of India’s biggest challenges, each story goes beyond the invention to explore the problem it solved, the impact it created and why it still matters today.
A satellite does not simply leave Earth and arrive at its destination.
After a rocket launches it into space, there is still a delicate journey ahead. The satellite has to be nudged, manoeuvred and gradually raised into the precise orbit where it can begin doing its job. Get the calculations or timing wrong, and years of work — and a hugely expensive machine — could be at risk.
In 2011, Indian space scientist T K Anuradha was working on exactly this problem.
As Project Director for ISRO’s GSAT-12 mission, she helped develop and implement an innovative way of controlling a geosynchronous satellite as it was manoeuvred into its final orbit. The technique helped make the mission successful and has continued to be used in satellite operations.
But the story behind that innovation began much earlier, with a little girl looking up at the Moon.
When the Moon landing made space feel possible
Born in 1960, Anuradha grew up between Shivamogga and Bengaluru with three sisters. Her father, a Sanskrit professor, placed a strong emphasis on education, while her childhood environment gave her room to question, debate and follow her curiosity.
She particularly loved mathematics and science.
Then came 1969; like millions around the world, the young Anuradha watched as Apollo 11 carried humans to the Moon. For her, the historic mission was more than something spectacular happening far away. It made space feel like a field she could one day be part of.
In 2011, T K Anuradha led the team that manoeuvred GSAT-12 into its final geostationary orbit, helping demonstrate the impact of quieter innovations in space technology. Photograph: (Facebook/ @Indian Armed Forces)
She went on to study Electronics and Communication Engineering at University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in Bengaluru, where she emerged as a university topper.
Three years later, she joined ISRO.
The problem hiding after a successful launch
In 1982, Anuradha began her career working on satellite testing, interfaces and systems that could assess how spacecraft performed in different mission environments.
That experience would prove invaluable because launching a satellite is only the beginning.
Take GSAT-12. When the communication satellite was launched aboard PSLV-C17 in July 2011, it was placed into a highly elliptical orbit. It then had to be carefully moved towards its intended geostationary position, about 36,000 km above the equator.
That meant a series of carefully timed orbit-raising manoeuvres.
The first was particularly challenging: the satellite moves fastest when it is closest to Earth, leaving engineers only a narrow window in which to fire its motors while also optimising fuel use.
This is where Anuradha’s work mattered.
After launch, a satellite must undergo a series of precise manoeuvres to reach its intended orbit. Anuradha helped develop a new approach to controlling this complex journey.
Photograph: (Space)
Her approach to controlling geosynchronous satellites helped the team manoeuvre GSAT-12 into its final orbit. It was not the kind of innovation that produces a gadget you can hold in your hand. It was quieter than that — a new way of handling a complex spacecraft thousands of kilometres above Earth.
And sometimes, in space technology, quiet innovations are the ones that make everything else possible.
The control room where three women took charge
There was another first unfolding on Earth.
At ISRO’s Master Control Facility in Hassan, Karnataka, Anuradha led an all-women team that monitored the satellite’s crucial manoeuvres. Alongside Mission Director Pramodha Hegde and Operations Director K S Anuradha, she watched the spacecraft’s every move through banks of screens and antenna systems.
At ISRO’s Master Control Facility in Hassan, Anuradha led an all-women team that monitored GSAT-12’s crucial manoeuvres from the ground. Photograph: (Mitramandal Bengaluru)
At one point, as the satellite’s antenna was deployed, the control room erupted in applause.
Anuradha reportedly described the feeling of seeing a satellite she had worked on take its first steps as being “like delivering a baby”.
The gender milestone, however, was not what she had set out to create. She was focused on the mission. The significance of having three women at the centre of such a crucial operation became clearer as the achievement was reported.
By then, Anuradha had spent nearly three decades building expertise in a field where precision mattered more than labels.
The woman behind the innovation
Anuradha eventually became the first woman at ISRO to serve as a satellite Project Director. Over a 38-year career, she went on to work on several communication, remote sensing and navigation programmes, including GSAT-10 and other GSAT missions.
Yet perhaps the most interesting part of her story is that her biggest breakthrough was not born from trying to prove that women could work in space.
From a girl fascinated by the Moon to ISRO’s first woman satellite Project Director, T K Anuradha built a 38-year career around curiosity, precision and problem-solving.
Photograph: (Jaikrit Speakers Bureau)
It came from doing what she had loved since childhood: understanding how things work, asking questions and finding a better way to solve a problem.
Her advice to young girls follows the same philosophy: stay focused on what you want to achieve, do not get distracted by other people’s opinions, and follow your own path with clarity and conviction.
Because sometimes, an innovation that helps move a satellite across space begins with something much more ordinary — a curious mind that refuses to stop asking, “Can this be done better?”
