The Centre has appointed V Narayanan as the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation and Secretary, Department of Space. Mr Narayanan will take over from S Somanath, the current head of the organisation, on January 14.
In a notification on Tuesday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet said Mr Narayanan, who is the head of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Valiamala, will have a tenure of two years. Mr Narayanan, who will also be the Chairman of the Space Commission, played a key role in India’s development of the cryogenic engine, a technology that was denied to the country.
Speaking to NDTV from Thiruvananthapuram, the newly appointed ISRO chief said, “We have a clear roadmap for India and I hope to take ISRO to greater heights as we have great talent,”
Mr Narayanan is a distinguished scientist (APEX Scale) and seniormost director in ISRO. The Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, which he heads, is engaged in the development of liquid, semi-cryogenic and cryogenic propulsion stages for launch vehicles, chemical and electric propulsion systems for satellites, control systems for launch vehicles, and transducers development for space systems health monitoring.
He is also the Chairman of the Project Management Council-Space Transportation System (PMC-STS), the decision-making body in all launch vehicle projects and programmes, and the Chairman of the National Level Human Rated Certification Board (HRCB) for Gaganyaan, India’s planned human spaceflight mission.
Having studied in Tamil-medium schools, Mr Narayanan chief completed his M Tech in Cryogenic Engineering and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur, where he was awarded a Silver Medal for achieving the first rank in the M Tech programme. The rocket and spacecraft propulsion expert joined ISRO in 1984 and rose through the ranks to become the director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in 2018.
S Somanath took over as the ISRO chief in January 2022 and it was under him that India became the first country in the world to land a rover in the south pole region of the Moon. It also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union, and China.