THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Senior scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Dr Unnikrishnan Nair S has assumed the office of Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). He will continue to hold the charge of director, Human Space Flight Centre, ISRO, said an official communication.
Nair hails from Kothanalloor in Kottayam. He started his career with the VSSC in 1985. He has held certain key positions like the first director of the HSFC, deputy director of structures and programme director of the Advanced Space Transportation System (ASTS). The HSFC is leading the Gaganyaan programme and the ASTS covers projects like human spaceflight.
“An important responsibility is the Gaganyaan programme. A lot of activities related to it are going on at the VSSC. Also, the SSLV and other important satellite missions deserve attention. Priority will be given to speed up different missions which were going on at a slow pace due to Covid,” Nair told TNIE. The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle is the indigenous launch rocket being developed by the ISRO.
Nair is a mechanical engineering graduate from Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam under Kerala University. He holds an ME (Aerospace Engineering) from IISc, Bangalore and a PhD from IIT Madras. His wife is Jaya G Nair, a former computer engineer of VSSC. The couple has two daughters, Aishwarya Nair and Chaithanya Nair.
He has won many awards and accolades including ISRO’s Team Excellence award for contributions to space capsule re-entry experiment in 2007, ISRO Excellence award as team leader for CARE in 2014, ISRO Individual Merit award in 2014 for contributions towards technology development towards manned space mission and ISRO Excellence award as team leader for Crew Escape System Pad Abort test in 2018. Sathyabama University conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 2019 for his outstanding contributions to human space flight activities.