Dr. K. Sivan

Launch-vehicle mission designer who chaired ISRO from January 2018 to January 2022, including the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

Contribution

Sivan is a specialist in rocket mission design: planning the path a rocket flies, its guidance and control, and the computer simulations that check it all before launch. He joined ISRO in 1982 and was placed in the PSLV project.

He was chief architect of SITARA, ISRO's six-degree-of-freedom trajectory simulation software, used for all its launch vehicles. He also devised a 'day-of-launch wind biasing' method that adjusts a rocket's flight plan to the winds measured on launch day, so launches are not held back by changing weather. He was chief mission architect for the PSLV flight that placed 104 satellites in orbit in one launch.

Career

He was Director of VSSC when the government appointed him Secretary of the Department of Space and Chairman of the Space Commission in January 2018, succeeding A. S. Kiran Kumar. He served as ISRO Chairman until January 2022.

In 2015 Springer published his book Integrated Design for Space Transportation System.

Linked missions

Chandrayaan-2: as Chairman he briefed the government on the mission, and on 20 August 2019 announced that the spacecraft had entered its planned lunar orbit.
PSLV: mission design, including the 104-satellite launch.
GSLV and LVM3: his PSLV design methods carried over to these rockets.