Sri. Somanath, Director, VSSC

Congratulations, Sri. Somanath, 

on your new assignment as Director, VSSC

About Sri. Somanath ( quote from ISRO )



Mr. S Somanath, ‘Outstanding Scientist’ and former Director, LPSC,  has taken over as the Director of VSSC. He took over as Director from Dr K Sivan, who has taken over as the Chairman, ISRO.

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.

Mr Somanath completed graduation in Mechanical Engineering from TKM College of Engineering, Quilon, Kerala University. Later, he took Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering from IISc, Bangalore with specialisation in Dynamics and Control.

Mr Somanath joined VSSC  in 1985.  He became associated with PSLV Project during its early development phase. As a member of the vehicle integration team, he was responsible for the system integration design and subassembly realisation and testing the stages of PSLV during its development.  He was a team leader for the first and second developmental flights of  PSLV.

Later, as Project Manager, Vehicle Engineering and Launch Services Management of PSLV Project, he was responsible for the mechanisms and pyro-technique systems of the vehicle. And, as satellite launch service manager, he co-ordinated the launches of commercial mini satellites in PSLV-C2 and C3 missions, and the development of small satellite accommodation systems and separation systems for mini satellites.

As the convenor, Mr Somanath authored the Project report of GSLV Mk-III (also known as LVM3) during 2000-2002 and joined GSLV Mk-III Project in 2003. Later, he became the Deputy Project Director responsible for Vehicle Engineering and Mission design, Structural Design and Integration. Mr. Somanath became the Project Director of GSLV Mk-III in 2010.

He became the Deputy Director of VSSC’s Structures Entity during 2012-13 and was responsible for all the structural design, analysis and testing activities related to launch vehicle structural systems. He was also the Deputy Director of ‘Propulsion and Space Ordinance Entity’, which handles propulsion research activities, especially those related to solid motors and the design and development of pyro systems, till November, 2014.

Under Mr Somanath’s leadership, LVM3-X/CARE mission, the first experimental suborbital test flight of LVM3, was successfully accomplished on December 18, 2014.

Mr Somanath is the recipient of many awards and honours, including the Gold Medal from IISc, Bangalore for the Masters Programme and ‘Space Gold Medal’ from Astronautical Society of India. He has also received the Performance Excellence award from ISRO in the year 2009 and Team excellence award for GSLV Mk-III realisation.

Mr Somanath participated in International Astronautical Federation Congress (IAF-2012) held at Prague in 2012, launch activities of ISRO satellites on Ariane-5 at Kourou, French Guyana, mission reviews for GSAT missions at ESA, Paris and customer spacecraft interface at KAIST, South Korea.  He was a member of the Indian delegation to UN-COPUOS, Vienna in 2013.

Mr Somanath has published papers in many areas that include structural dynamics and control, dynamic analysis of separation mechanisms, vibration/acoustic testing, launch vehicle design and launch services management.