Learnings from Chandrayaan 3

After a 41-day journey into space, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, 'Vikram', touched down on the uncharted lunar South Pole on 23 Aug 2023, making India the first country to land on the south pole of the moon. India also joined an elite club of nations by becoming the fourth nation after the US, Russia and China to successfully conduct a lunar landing mission.

President of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly Csaba Korosi said in a tweet that the victory is a giant step for humanity, science, and innovation. And a giant step for India.

Chandrayaan-3 is the third mission in the Chandrayaan program, a series of lunar-exploration missions developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It is no easy feat to execute the?mission?within a record estimated budget of Rs. 615 crore, approximately $75 million.

The success is a testament to ISROs unwavering commitment to overcoming obstacles, ultimately accomplishing the moonshot and carving a new chapter in the space odyssey.

What led to the success of Chandrayaan 3?

ISROs Chandrayaan 3 mission exemplifies frugal innovation, provides valuable lessons in leadership, strategy, collaboration, innovation, resource optimization, resilience. While this would be an excellent case study for management schools and would require in-depth study, here are my initial takeaways and leadership lessons from the mission:

1.?????? Deep sense of Purpose: One striking factor that gleamed out about ISRO is a strong commitment to the larger mission. Each member felt deeply connected to the cause. Anyone who interacted with the ISRO team could feel their deep sense of purpose and it reflected in their work. Everyone at ISRO believed in the mission and knew it was achievable.

How clear and inspiring is your vision? What can you do as a leader to instill a sense of purpose and keep your teams motivated over extended periods?

2.?????? Learn from failures: The lessons learned from the failure of Chandrayaan-2 contributed to the success of India's third lunar mission. A lot of corrective steps were taken in Chandryaan-3. Learning from the experience of?Chandrayaan-2 set back paved way for greater achievements. Ex- ISRO chief K Sivan who led Chandrayaan-2 mission said, “The learning that we got for?Chandrayaan-2; our unsuccessful attempt to soft land helped us in perfecting the technology, to run large number of experiments to test the process of landing and it paid dividends.” One of the project directors of the mission mentioned that they had prepared for all points of failures for what could go wrong. In a way they were preparing for failures not for success. It was a failure planned mission (planned for every failure) not a success planned mission. Former space scientist with ISRO, Nambi Narayanan said, "Every failure of Chandrayaan-2 was addressed - be it a satellite problem, stability problem or an additional requirement problem and all were rectified."

What lessons have you learnt from your failures and what corrective steps are you taking?

3.?????? Resilience: Ex ISRO Chief Sivan in an interview told, “I would be lying if I say I was not majorly disappointed. We came so close to success. But I think what is more important is the ability to get back. I think that is a great institutional strength at?ISRO.” Rather than dwelling on the disappointment they used the experience as a springboard to get back and do better.

How is your resilience quotient to bounce back from failures? ?

4.?????? Teamwork and Collaboration – Undoubtedly a mission like this is not possible without teamwork and collaboration. Space missions involve collaboration between various organizations, scientists, engineers, and experts from different domains. At the celebratory event, the ISRO chief and project directors stressed how closely the cross functional diverse teams - navigation, guidance, propulsion and external partners worked together towards the mission.

What are you doing to foster effective collaboration among diverse teams in the pursuit of a common goal?

5.?????? Innovation and Problem-Solving: Space exploration often requires innovative solutions to combat unique challenges. ISROs team was willing to go back to the drawing board and look at things from a different perspective using a different lens from Chandrayaan 2. ?Even the highly accomplished scientists had the humility to admit that there are things they don’t know, they need to learn and do things differently. They adopted a beginner’s mindset and moonshot thinking, an approach of innovation that requires one to be open-minded and adopt new ways of thinking that results in not a 10% but a 10 times improvement. Current ISRO chief Somanath underscored what the failure taught ISRO’s scientists, and attributed Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing in good measure to the many experiments they did to ensure success.

How can you encourage a culture of innovation and empower your teams to think creatively and develop novel approaches to problem-solving?

6.?????? Discipline in Execution: There was immaculate attention to details and discipline governed every inch of the value chain execution. The project heads spoke of how the meticulous design, critical reviews and rigorous testing prepared the mission for the challenges.

What controls you can put in place to prepare for the unforeseen?

7.?????? Risk management – Space missions carry significant risks, including technical, financial, and operational risks. The team conducted exhaustive and rigorous testing and ran extensive simulations to ensure every component from propulsion systems to landing gear delivered as expected. Leaders must be skilled in assessing and managing risks and making informed and timely decisions.

What approach do you follow to address risks?

8.?????? Adaptability: ISRO had a contingency plan in place in case of any problems during the Chandrayaan 3 mission. There was a plan B to overcome unexpected hurdles. If the condition appeared unfavorable, they had planned to adapt and land the Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's surface on August 27 to minimize the impact of any problems.

How adaptable are you to nimbly respond to changes?

9.?????? More with less: ISRO executed the?mission?within an estimated budget of approximately $75 million which is cheaper than the two most talked about Hollywood movies ruling the global box office today; Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ and Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’. They managed it with efficient allocation of resources, monitoring of expenses and prudent decision making.

How can you ‘do more’ with ‘less’?

10.?? Talent and Culture: The success of the mission is a testament about the talent in the esteemed organization. The enthusiasm and passion radiating from employees of ISRO speaks loudly of the culture of the organization. Building and nurturing a talented workforce is essential for the success of space missions.

Are you investing in talent development, training, and mentorship to ensure the continued growth and expertise of your people?

11.?? Good Governance: They had a good governance framework to ensure they received executive guidance, support from the top and adequate financial, technological, human resources to execute the prestigious mission.

Is your governance framework working?

12.?? Communication: ISRO very effectively communicated and engaged with people within and outside the organization throughout the Chandrayaan missions (failures and success) through different channels to garner support and enthusiasm for their missions.

How effective is your communication?

There is much more to learn from the Chandrayaan-3 mission. This is the beginning!

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