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India's Missile woman - Ms. Tessy Thomas
Missile Woman: ‘Ms Tessy Thomas’ - suriyodayam's blogTessy Thomas has multiple monikers. Missile Woman and Agni Putri are just a few of them. The 45-year-old from Kerala, after all, is India's first woman scientist to head a strategic weapons project and was also part of the elite team responsible for Agni III. "It is a great sense of responsibility contributing to national security," says Thomas, who was one of the 10 chosen by the Defence Research and Development Organisation after a national entrance test in 1985. Superwoman, indeed.
New Delhi: She has been dubbed India`s `missile woman`, one in the team of India`s elite scientists behind the Agni III, India`s longest-range nuclear capable missile that can hit targets up to 3,000 km. But then Tessy Thomas is not called `Agni Putri`, or daughter of fire, for nothing.
When photographs of jubilant Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientists appeared after the May 7 launch of Agni III, Tessy was the subject of many a question. But the 45-year-old associate project director of Agni missiles takes the curiosity in her stride. What matters is that her gender is not called into question at her workplace.
`Here, I am considered as a scientist and not a woman. But it has to be taken into account that the job with DRDO comes with a responsibility; it is for one who can understand the criticality of the work,` the woman from Alleppey in Kerala said.
`It was the determination of my mother that kept me going. My M.Tech degree in Guided Missiles gave me an upper hand. Also I joined under Dr. A.P.J. Kalam and have worked under seniors who always encouraged me.
`When I joined DRDO, there were only four-five women. Now there are about 20-30 women in a lab of 250 scientists. It is a good improvement,` Tessy told IANS.
Tessy Thomas: India`s Agni putri
'Missile woman' to handle ambitious Agni-V project - Times Of IndiaNEW DELHI: It's indeed rocket science. And Tessy Thomas is going great guns at unravelling all its complexities. Though women and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles usually don't go together, Thomas is systematically breaking all glass ceilings in the avowedly male bastion of `strategic weapons'.
Thomas has now been appointed the project director (mission) of India's most ambitious missile, Agni-V, with a strike range of 5,000-km, which is slated to be tested for the first time next year.
Thomas, 46, was made the project director of the new advanced version of the 2,500-km Agni-II missile last year after she played a crucial role in the successful firing of the 3,500-km range Agni-III missile as an associate project director, as reported by TOI earlier.
Now, she has added another feather to her cap by being assigned to Agni-V, the test-firing of which will propel India towards having potent ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capabilities, largely the preserve of the Big-5 countries till now.
Thomas, contacted by TOI on Tuesday, was reluctant to talk till she `had clearance from the top'. Overall Agni programme director, Avinash Chander, however, was full of praise for her. "She is one of the key members of the entire Agni programme,'' he said.
"The designer for the missile guidance systems, among other things, she is one of the most dedicated scientists in our team. She finds solutions to problems,'' he added.
A B.Tech from Thrissur Engineering College, Calicut, and M.Tech from Pune-based Defence Institute of Advanced Technologies, Thomas is an expert on `solid system propellants' which fuel the Agni missiles.
Based at the Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad, Thomas has been associated with the Agni programme for around two decades now. Her fascination for `rockets' began with the Apollo moon missions when she was in school at Alappuzha in Kerala.
The dream turned to reality when this `missile woman' was assigned to the Agni programme soon after joining DRDO in 1988 by the original `missile man', former President APJ Abdul Kalam. There are around 20 other women scientists working on the Agni programme but Thomas is the first to become a project director of an Agni system.
The work on the solid-fuelled Agni-V basically revolves around incorporating a third composite stage in the two-stage Agni-III, along with some advanced technologies like ring laser gyroscope and accelerator for navigation and guidance.
The endeavour is to ensure that Agni-V, for which the government has sanctioned around Rs 2,500 crore, is also a canister-launch missile system to ensure it has the requisite operational flexibility to be fired from any part of the country. It will be slightly short of true ICBMs, which have ranges in excess of 5,500 km, but enough to take care of existing `threat perceptions'.
