Prof. Jitendra Nath Goswami - was born in 1950 in Assam, is the Principal Scientist of Chandrayaan-1 from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) of the Indian Department of Space and Director of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft detected water on the lunar surface in June 2009. The successful launch of the Chandrayaan-1 on 22nd October, 2008 and its insertion into a lunar polar orbit on 8th November are landmark events for the Indian Space Research Organization and marked the beginning of India’s foray into planetary exploration.Prof Goswami obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from the Gauhati University, Assam, before joining the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, for his PhD work. His PhD work dealt with studies of cosmic ray records in lunar sample and meteorites. He was a co-investigator of the Indian cosmic ray experiment conducted on-board Space Shuttle Spacelab-3, and is a Principal Investigator of Lunar samples.
Prof Goswami has more than a hundred and fifty publications and a dozen invited review articles in peer reviewed journals. He has received various awards and honors that include INSA Young Scientist award, Young Associate of Indian Academy of Sciences, the NASA group achievement award and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in earth and planetary sciences. He is an elected fellow of several international forums that include Meteoritical Society, Geochemical Society of USA, European Association of Geochemistry and International Astronautical Academy. He has been elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2008.
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