Senior rocket scientist S Somanath appointed as chief of ISRO

The government has appointed S Somanath, a rocket scientist as the new chairman for India's space agency. He will replace K Sivan, who led the push to get private firms into India's space sector during his four-year term.

Somanath is currently director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), India's rocket development lab in Trivandrum. An alumni of Indian Institute of Science, he led the development of India's most powerful rocket GSLV Mk-3, which will be used for the country's human space mission. Somanath also worked on the workhorse PSLV rocket.

He takes over as Isro chairman at a time India is opening its space secctor to private firms and startups to build rockets and satellites, besides offering services to both local and global markets. Isro will focus on building more powerful rockets such as semi-cryogenic engine that wil help put bigger satellites into space at lower costs and work on missions such as the humanspaceflight. India expects to send astronauts to space on its own rocket by 2023.


Somanath also has to improve the output from the space agency, which has been impacted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, Isro conducted two missions as against its planned 18-20 missions.