Govt Appoints S Somnath As New Chairman of ISRO

New Delhi: The Center has appointed S Somanath as the Secretary of the Department of Space and the Chairman of the Space Commission.

An order issued by the Ministry of Personnel on Wednesday said that his new appointment is for a combined tenure of three years from the date of joining the post, inclusive of an extension in tenure beyond the age of superannuation in the public interest or until further orders whichever is earlier.

Meanwhile, commenting on his appointment, S Somnath said, Glad to join as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman (ISRO). The areas of focus would be technology, policy, implementation, and such areas where stakeholders need to be taken care of. We need to bring new perspectives. Will have to work with various capacity builders like tech companies.

A Somnath is currently the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC). He will succeed Somnath K Sivan, who is completing his extended term on Friday, January 14.

S Somnath was born in July 1963. He did his graduation in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kerala. He passed his degree with the second rank in the university.

Later, he completed his post-graduation in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and bagged Gold Medal for his meritorious performance.

Apart from these, Somnath is the recipient of the Space Gold Medal from the Astronautical Society of India (ASI) from ISRO. He has been awarded Performance Excellence Award-2014 and Team Excellence Award-2014 for achieving GSLV Mk-III.

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