The task is cut out for Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar, who took charge on Wednesday afternoon as ISRO’s eighth Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space, for the next three years. He also chairs the think-tank body, the Space Commission.
Credited with the development of important imaging payloads and sharp-seeing ‘eyes and ears’ of the country’s Earth observation spacecraft, Mr. Kiran Kumar, 62, inherits a 54-year-old organisation that is struggling to surmount old twin issues: those of self-reliance in satellite transponder capacity; and launch capability that enables its GSLV rockets to lift our communication satellites.
Hailing from Hassan, Mr. Kiran Kumar did his college and higher studies in Bengaluru - B.Sc Honours from National College, Basavanagudi; M.Sc in electronics from Central College (Bangalore University and M.Tech in physical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science. He has served his entire stint from 1975 at ISRO’s Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad.
Colleagues describe the new incumbent at Antariksh Bhavan as an affable man of few words, modest, hard-working and thorough in his area of satellite payloads.
As the then Director of Space Application Centre and Mars Spacecraft Authorisation Board chief, Mr. Kiran Kumar, they recall, is the real, unsung hero of the Mars mission, “silently, diligently seeing the Mars spacecraft through from Earth on December 1, 2013, and masterminding it until it achieved the orbit around Mars on September 24, 2014.”
For the next couple of years, the bread-and-butter satellite and launch vehicle projects are lined up. Their new chief would have to quickly forge ahead on all three fronts: communication satellites; launch vehicles; and Earth observation.
Insiders say 2014 was consumed by the euphoria of the Mars mission. The ground reality today is that it is important to realise the nagging indigenous cryogenic stages of the two-tonne GSLV and the four-tonne GSLV-MkIII launchers. They will enable India to put its communication satellites into orbit on its own without foreign help or foreign exchange outgo.
Communication spacecraft are the backbone of radio and television broadcasting, telephone and broadband communication and a few commercial services. ISRO has been forced to lease a third or 90 transponders on foreign satellites; 190 transponders are from Indian satellites.
They say advanced satellites with 80-100 transponders must get off the ground, societal-use telemedicine, tele-education and village resource centres must be tended; as also remote-sensing which has a security implication.
