THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sheena Rani, a Malayali woman from Thiruvananthapuram, was the brain behind the successful launch of India's Divyastra AGNI 5 ballistic missile. The DRDO Mission Director made the country proud by making Mission Divyastra a grand success. The Prime Minister, who informed the country about the success of the missile test, described her as 'Divya Putri'.

Sheena Rani, who worked at Thumpa VSSC till 1998, was involved in rocket manufacturing projects there for eight years. She joined VSSC after passing B.Tech in Electronics and Communication with rank from Government Engineering College (CET), Thiruvananthapuram.

It was here that Sheena met India's missile man, Abdul Kalam, which led her to missile technology. On Kalam's advice, she joined the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in 1999 from ISRO. Sheena joined Hyderabad Missile House, a part of DRDO, and has been involved in Agni missile manufacturing since its inception. She was the launch control director for all five Agni missile series. Sheena later became the program director of the MIRV edition that happened recently. It is in the 25th year of Sheena's arrival at DRDO that she became part of this brilliant achievement.

Her husband is PSR Srinivasa Shastri, a scientist working in the Navigation Department of DRDO. Srinivas was involved in the construction of the Kautilya satellite launched by ISRO in 2019.

India's answer to China

Agni 5, which can accurately reach targets within a radius of 5,000 km and carries about 10 warheads, is India's answer to China. Manufactured using Multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIAV) technology, it will launch from Earth to space and come back to Earth, split into multiple warheads and strike targets with precision. With the success of the experiment, India joined the ranks of America, Russia, China, Britain and France. The mission was named Divyastra by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.