Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is no more. Starting as an X-ray astronomer while growing up in positions, his scholastic services and accomplishments in the fields of science, technology, and education have left an indelible mark. India started national space programme in a humble way in the late 1960s, when the US and the erstwhile USSR made their presence felt with the lunar missions.
It was during Kasturirangan’s tenure, stretching nine long years as chairman of ISRO (1994-2003) that the Indian space programme smoothly graduated from the experimental phase to the operational phase in the areas of earth observation satellites, communication satellites, and launch services.
Kasturirangan propelled ISRO into commercial space
Kasturirangan’s visionary approach made ISRO boldly venture into commercial space, also leasing 10 transponders of INSAT-2E satellite to INTELSAT – an International consortium for communication satellites, for $10 million as early as 1999. It is through this service that Indian households were able to watch cable TV programmes in regional languages and Indian TV programmes reached out to 47 countries.
Kasturirangan took ISRO’s slogan of “Space for Society” in a true spirit when he came out with the thematic space missions: EDUSAT for tele education; INSATs/GSATs for telemedicine and communication; RESOURCESAT for earth resources; METSAT for meteorology; OCEANSAT for oceanography; CARTOSAT for cartography; Meghatropique for earth science; ASTROSAT for space science; and CHANDRAYAAN-1 for planetary science.
His initiative to translate the benefits of space to the real last-mile users brought in a system called National Natural Resource Management System, wherein many government departments including agriculture, town planning, water resource management, fisheries, health, education, etc, were enabled to harness the benefits.
It was during Kasturirangan’s tenure that ISRO’s launch vehicles PSLV and GSLV were made operational. It was Kasturirangan’s lecture on National Technology Day in 1998 ideating a technical possibility of India placing a satellite around the Moon (Chandrayaan-1) using the PSLV launcher that germinated into a full-fledged project report in 2003.
Brought distinction to every post he held: CM
CM MK Stalin and various TN leaders condoled the demise of the renowned space scientist. “Kasturirangan played a pivotal role in laying the foundation for India’s significant achievements in space research. Not only was he an outstanding scientist, but he also brought distinction to every position he held,” the CM said.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, TNCC president K Selvaperunthagai, BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran, PMK president Dr Anbumani Ramadoss and others have also expressed their condolence to the bereaved family.
Mylswamy Annadurai
(The author, former director, ISRO Satellite Centre, worked with Dr Kasturirangan from 1982 to 2003)