N Valarmathi, an Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) scientist who was the voice behind the national space agency's rocket countdown launches, passed away on Saturday.
Her most recent countdown happened during the launch of Chandrayaan-3, India's successful moon mission that scripted history.
Taking to social media platform X, Dr PV Venkitakrishnan, a former director at ISRO, condoled her demise and wrote, "The voice of Valarmathi Madam will not be there for the countdowns of future missions of ISRO from Sriharikota. Chandrayaan-3 was her final countdown announcement. An unexpected demise. Feel so sad. Pranams!"
Valarmathi, a native of Tamil Nadu's Ariyalur, died on Saturday evening in Chennai of a heart attack, according to Wion.
Meanwhile, Chandrayaan-3 was launched on July 14 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. It landed successfully on the moon on August 23.
Chandrayaan-3's Rover ramped down from the Vikram lander to the lunar surface on August 25. Chandrayaan-3 mission has three components- The propulsion module, which transferred the lander and the rover module to 100 kilometres of lunar orbit, the Lander module, which was responsible for the soft landing of the lunar craft and the Rover module, which is for exploring components on the moon.
In another achievement, ISRO on Saturday launched ISRO's solar mission Aditya-L1, which is expected to reach the observation point in four months.
Major objectives of India’s solar mission include the study of the physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism, the solar wind acceleration, coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares and near-earth space weather.
(With inputs from agency)