THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: P Kunhikrishnan will take charge as the director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Shriharikota, on Sunday. Kunhikrishnan had been working as the project director of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) project since June 2010.
As the PSLV project head, he supervised 13 successful PSLV missions, including the PSLV-C25 which put the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) in orbit around the earth. A native of Payyanur, Kannur, Kunhikrishnan joined the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1986. He had made significant contributions in the area of system-level quality assurance of avionics, electrical integration and checkout systems for various launch vehicles, the ISRO said in a statement.Kunhikrishnan is married to J Girija, a senior engineer at VSSC, Thumba, and they have two sons.