Meet S Somnath, Rocket Scientist Who Has Been Appointed As New ISRO Chief

Dr S Somnath, an Indian aerospace engineer and rocket scientist, has been appointed as the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). On Wednesday, January 12, the Government of India (GOI) announced Somnath as the 10th chairman of ISRO, succeeding Dr Kailasavadivoo Sivan, who will complete his extended tenure on Friday.

Somnath will assume the charge as the Secretary of the Department of Space and the Chairman of the Space Commission for a tenure of three years from the date of joining. His term is inclusive of the extension beyond the age of superannuation in the public interest, a Personnel Ministry order said.

Early Life And Education

Dr S Somnath was born in July 1963 and hails from Aroor in the Alappuzha district in the state of Kerala.

He completed his pre-degree program at Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, located in Kochi. He pursued a graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Thangal Kunju Musaliar College of Engineering (TKMCE), Kollam, affiliated with Kerala University. Later he received a post-graduate degree with a gold medal in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, specializing in Dynamics and Control.

Career So Far

Dr S Somnath joined Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), ISRO, in 1985 and went on to serve as its director in January 2018. He worked extensively on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLG) programmes.

Initially at VSSC, he worked on projects dealing with the integration of the PSLV and served as its project manager from 1995 to 2002. He took over as the deputy project director of the GSLV Mark III launch from 2010 to 2014, where he was responsible for the overall mission, including its design (vehicle and structure).

The scientists has made evident contributions to vehicle design, particularly in launch vehicle systems engineering, structural design, structural dynamics, and pyrotechnics.

On December 18, 2014, the first experimental flight of the CARE mission, the LVM3-X/CARE mission, was successfully accomplished under Somnath's leadership, as per Wion.

Somnath served as the Deputy Director of Propulsion and Space Ordinance Entity till November 2014. Later he took charge as the director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram, in June 2015.

As a director of LPSC, he has played a crucial part in several triumphant GSLV Mark III and PSLV missions. He played pivotal roles in three successful GSLV missions with indigenous cryogenic stages and eleven successful PSLV missions with the liquid phases realized by LPSC.

In 2019, he led the team that developed a throttleable engine for the Vikram lander, used in the Chandrayaan 2 mission, the same year. Chandrayaan 2 was ISRO's first moon mission with an orbiter, the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover.

Achievements

Dr S Somnath is a recipient of the Space Gold Medal from Astronautical Society of India (ASI), Performance Excellence Award-2014 and Team Excellence Award-2014 for GSLV Mk-III realization from ISRO.

He is also the corresponding member of the International Academy of Astronauts and a fellow of the Astronomical Society of India.

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