New Delhi: India on Wednesday scripted history by becoming the first country in the world to reach the uncharted territory of the Moon. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm, making India the first country to land on the moon’s unexplored surface. With this ‘monumental moment’, India also became the fourth country to master the technology of soft-landing on the Moon after the United States, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Chandrayaan-3: ISRO Chief S Somanath played key role in India’s moon mission

One of the key functionaries in Chandrayaan-3 mission is ISRO chief S Somanath. The 60-year-old helped guide the Chandrayaan-3 team, which had Dr P Veeramuthuvel as Project Director, K Kalpana as Associate Project Director, and M Srikanth as Mission Operations Director. 

Born in July 1963 in Kerala’s Thuravoor Thekku, Somanath has B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. He also has obtained a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, specializing in Structures, Dynamics, and Control with a Gold Medal. 

He joined the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), which is the lead centre of ISRO responsible for the design and development of launch vehicle technology, in 1985. He was also a team leader for the Integration of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which is the ‘Workhorse’ of ISRO, during the early phases.

Before becoming the ISRO head in 2022, Somanath served as the Director of the VSSC for four years. He also served as the Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) in Kerala’s Valiamala for two and half years.

Somanath is an expert in the area of system engineering of launch vehicles. His contributions in PSLV and GSLV MkIII were in their overall architecture, propulsion stages design, structural and structural dynamics designs, separation systems, vehicle integration, and integration procedures development.

Chandrayaan-3: ISRO Chief S Somanath has received ‘Space Gold Medal’ 

ISRO Chief S Somanath is the recipient of the ‘Space Gold Medal’ from the Astronautical Society of India. He has also received the ‘Merit Award’ and ‘Performance Excellence award’ from ISRO and a ‘Team excellence award’ for GSLV Mk-III development. 

He is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), a fellow of the Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), Astronautical Society of India (ASI), and a corresponding member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). 

Somanath is also in the bureau of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and a recipient of the National Aeronautics Prize from the ASI.

He has published papers in journals and seminars in structural dynamics and control, dynamic analysis of separation mechanisms, vibration & acoustic testing, launch vehicle design, and launch services management.