V Narayanan has been appointed as the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), succeeding S Somanath, as announced by the Union government on Tuesday. In addition to his role as chairman, he will also assume the position of secretary of the Department of Space. Dr. Narayanan, hailing from a modest farming background in Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, possesses extensive experience, having joined ISRO in 1984 and specializing in rocket propulsion, a critical area of the agency’s operations. He will hold these positions for a term of two years. With nearly four decades of expertise in rocket and spacecraft propulsion, Narayanan has made significant contributions to the field, including his tenure as the director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC).
His early career involved work in solid propulsion for Sounding Rockets and the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) and Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).He has also played a vital role in the planning and realization of advanced technologies such as ablative nozzle systems and composite motor cases. Currently, he leads the LPSC, a key ISRO facility located in Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram, with an additional unit in Bengaluru. Recently, ISRO has garnered attention for its successful launch of SpaDex, an indigenous space docking technology that is essential for future missions, including Chandrayaan 4 and Gaganyaan, positioning India among a select group of nations, including the United States, Russia, and China, that possess such capabilities.
