Sreedhara Panicker Somanath is an Indian aerospace engineer serving as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Under his chairmanship, ISRO carried out the third Indian lunar exploration mission named Chandrayaan-3. The lander named Vikram and the rover named Pragyan landed near the lunar south pole region on 23 August 2023 at 18:04 IST, making India the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole and
the fourth country to demonstrate soft landing on the Moon.
Somanath served as the director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram and director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. Somanath is known for his contributions to launch vehicle design, particularly in the areas of launch vehicle systems engineering, structural design, structural dynamics, and pyrotechnics.
After his graduation, Somanath joined Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in 1985. He was associated with Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle project during its initial phase. He became associate director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and the project director of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III launch vehicle in 2010. He was also the deputy director of the Propulsion and Space Ordinance Entity till November 2014.
In June 2015, he took over as director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram and served until January 2018. Somanath took over as director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre from K. Sivan who became chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation. In January 2022, he took over as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, again succeeding K. Sivan.
In recognition of his contributions to the field of science, Somanath was awarded a Doctorate of Science (Honoris Causa) on 25 September by SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu, on the occasion of the 18th Annual Convocation. On 23 August 2023, he as ISRO chairman spearheaded the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the South Pole of the lunar surface along with other notable senior ISRO scientists.
