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The Centre on Wednesday appointed Dr S. Somanath as the Secretary of the Department of Space and the Chairman of the Space Commission. His appointment is for a combined tenure of three years from the date of joining of the post, inclusive of an extension in tenure beyond the age of superannuation in public interest, a Personnel Ministry order said.
Mr Somanath is an expert in a host of disciplines including launch vehicle design and has specialised in launch vehicle systems engineering, structural design, structural dynamics, integration designs and procedures, mechanism design, and pyrotechnics.
He is currently the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram. He was a team leader for the Integration of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) during the early phases of his career.
Mr. Somanath, born in July 1963, graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Kerala University, with the second rank in the university; and completed his Post Graduation in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore with a Gold Medal for his meritorious performance.
He is the recipient of the Space Gold Medal from the Astronautical Society of India (ASI), Performance Excellence Award-2014 and Team Excellence Award-2014 for GSLV Mk-III realization, from ISRO.
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