BENGALURU: K Kalpana, the associate project director of Chandrayaan-3, may have been the only woman to be on the dais in the post-touchdown event at Isro on Wednesday, but she's not the only woman to have contributed to the success of the prestigious mission.

More than 100 women played a "direct and significant role" in making Vikram's soft-landing on the lunar south pole possible.While Chandrayaan-2 project director M Vanitha played a key role in the Chandrayaan-3 team, Ritu Kadhidal, the previous project's mission director, was also involved in the project reviews, Isro chairman S Somanath said.

According to Isro, women have taken the lead in the overall spacecraft configuration and realisation of Chandrayaan-3 and also in team management."Each space programme has been a resolute national mission, involving a select few directly, but thousands indirectly or remotely.

Every contributor plays a crucial role.

In case of CH-3, numerous academics, industries and PSUs actively participated in the project," Somanath said.While women scientists and engineers have been contributing to each of Isro's programmes for decades, Chandrayaan-3, in particular, saw more than 100 women play a critical role "in conceptualising, designing, realising, testing and executing" the mission."They played a key role in assembly, integration and testing of the spacecraft, establishment and execution of ground segments for mission operations, carrying out lander navigation, guidance and control simulations to assure the capability of the lander for an autonomous, safe and soft landing," Isro said.Besides this, they contributed towards the development and delivery of crucial sensors such as the Laser Altimeter, Laser Doppler Velocimeter and Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera that play a significant role in navigation during the lander's critical power descent phase.Highlighting what is known as the "Isro culture", the space agency said anyone, irrespective of organisational hierarchy, can put forth a technical argument that warrants a detailed discussion.

"No member, including the leader, is greater than the team.

The team leaders need not and cannot be experts in all disciplines and are required to bring out the best in each member," the agency further explained in a statement.Apart from K Kalpana, the associate project director, leaders of the Chandrayaan-3 team, guided by various Isro directors and Somanath himself, included P Veeramuthuvel (project director), M Srikanth (mission operations director), along with 27 deputy project directors from different Isro centres.