On May 29, several nail-biting minutes after the GSLV-F12/ NVS-01 mission rose to the skies from Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted: ‘‘Mission is accomplished.’‘ For one man especially, the thrill of triumph was also mixed with relief.
N. P. Giri, Project Director, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), and Mission Director for the GSLV-F12/NVS-01 flight, was only two days away from retirement. It was the maiden flight of the GSLV-Mk II after an agonising failure two years ago and he was loath to miss a chance at turning that failure into success.
Two days after the successful launch, he retired from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) which he had joined almost four decades ago. Speaking to The Hindu on Friday, Mr. Giri, who hails from Nedumangad, Thiruvananthapuram, described the GSLV-F12/NVS-01 mission as ‘‘the best retirement gift.’‘
‘Technical glitches’
As Project Director, Mr. Giri had enough reasons to be jittery in the run-up to the launch. He had taken over as Project Director in February 2019. The GSLV F-10 Mission, slated for a 2020 launch, had to be put off on account of ‘technical glitches.’ By then COVID-19 was messing up the ISRO launch calendar. The GSLV F-10 lifted off on August 12, 2021, but the mission failed owing to a valve leak and lowered pressure in the cryogenic upper stage.
This left the May 29 mission his last shot at success.
N. P. Giri at the launchpad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
‘’I was really tense before the launch. For one, the GSLV has never really been an ‘obedient boy.’ Second, the launch vehicle had a four-metre ogive-shaped payload fairing, and GSLVs with fairings that large had never had successful flights. We all had struggled hard to correct the errors which caused the GSLV-F10 to fail. Everybody wished hard for success this time,’‘ he said. He recalled the support given by his colleagues, especially ISRO chairman S. Somanath, who too had joined ISRO in 1985, the same year as Mr. Giri.
Turning point
A young Giri did his schooling at the Government Boys’ High School (Malayalam medium), Nedumangad. He joined the Aerospace Mechanisms Group at VSSC armed with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram. He later secured his MTech degree in Machine Design and Robotics from IIT Kanpur.
A big moment in his career came when he was assigned to the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE - 1) as Deputy Project Director. SRE - 1 was meant to demonstrate the successful re-entry and recovery of a 550-kg spacecraft launched aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in 2007. Though fraught with technical challenges, the mission was a huge success. ‘‘9:47 hrs - Splash-down!! SRE-1 has landed near the desired location surviving the uncertain re-entry environment!’‘ Mr. Giri later wrote in Countdown, the in-house journal of VSSC.
That same year, Mr. Giri moved to the GSLV as Deputy Project Director. It was like ‘‘moving from a pond to an ocean,’‘ he recalls. ‘‘The GSLV is like a university. It is a complex vehicle with multiple liquid stages and a cryogenic upper stage,’‘ he said. He was Vehicle Director for five successful GSLV - MkII missions, before taking over as GSLV Project Director.
‘’With the SRE-1 it was excitement. With the latest GSLV mission, it was the relief of turning failure into success,’‘ he says. Mr. Giri is married to Mini, who is a high school teacher. The couple has a daughter, Aparna, and two sons, Achyuth and Akshay.
