Senior rocket scientist S.Somanath has been appointed as the tenth chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. He will take over charge from K Sivan who will be completing his term of office. Somanath is currently serving as director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Center.
He completed BTech in mechanical engineering from TKM College of Engineering, Kollam and a Masters in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science and specialised in structures, dynamics and control.
He joined VSSC in 1985 and was a team leader for integration of PSLV. He is an expert in system engineering of launch vehicles. He was the project director of GSLV Mk-III from June 2010 to 2014 and under his leadership, the first experimental flight of the CARE mission was successfully accomplished in December 2014. He played a key role in three successful missions of GSLV and 11 successful missions of PSLV.
