Mutthaya Vanitha is an Indian electronics system engineer who has led projects on satellites at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). She is currently the project director of the Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission of the ISRO. Born to a civil engineer and an electronics and communications engineer, from Chennai, India. She has worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for 32 years now and has worked tirelessly to give India the privilege of being remembered as the fourth country in the world to make a highly challenging soft-landing on the Moon.
Muthayya Vanitha originally studied to be a design engineer, but her first job at ISRO was that of the junior-most engineer. At a junior level, she assisted in making hardware, designing, developing and then reached a managerial position” (NDTV interview) Later, she was appointed as the project director of the telemetry and telecom divisions in the Digital Systems Group at ISRO Satellite Centre. Before heading the historical mission, Vanitha also worked as the deputy project director for TTC-baseband systems for Cartosat-1, Oceansat-2 and Megha-Tropiques satellites.