Senior Aerospace Scientist S Somanath Becomes New ISRO Chairman

ROCKET SCIENTIST S. SOMANATH IS ISRO'S NEW CHAIRMAN

Senior aerospace scientist S Somanath has been appointed as the new chairman and space secretary of the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO). The centre on Wednesday appointed him as the secretary of the Space Department and the chairman of the Space Commission. The appointment is for a duration of three years. Usually, the post of the Chairman, Secretary and Space commission Chief is held by a person in ISRO.

ROCKET SCIENTIST S. SOMANATH IS ISRO’S NEW CHAIRMAN

The top agenda at this point for Somanath is the inclusion of space sector reforms involving hand-holding of the private sector and start-ups in order to assist them in emerging as the key parameters. He stated that the Indian space is a Rs 16,000 crore economy and should grow to a Rs 60,000 crore economy. He says that this is achievable by allowing the private sector to get access as it will help in making the space ecosystem more viable and self-sustaining. At the moment, ISRO has numerous missions in its pipelines like Gangayaan human spaceflight mission.

Somanath’s Eminent Work Details :

S Somanath has been associated with many important projects before getting appointed as the chairman of ISRO. Before this, he was serving as the director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He played a major role in the development of the PSLV and GSL MkIII. Somanath has specialised in the System Engineering of Launch Vehicles. He also has a specialisation in structural design, structural dynamics, integration design, integration procedures, mechanism design and pyrotechnics. He also served as the Director of the Liquid System Propulsion Center (LPSC) at Valiamala. There he worked on the development of the indigenous cryogenic stages for the GSLV.

Born in July 1963, S Somanath did his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from TKM College of Engineering, Kollam. He has a masters in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is a gold medalist and a recipient of the Space Gold Medal from the Astronautical Society of India. Team Excellence Award-2014 for GSLV Mk-III and performance Excellence Award -2014 from ISRO.