Chennai, Jan 8 (UNI) The Union Government has appointed distinguished

space scientist and LPSC Vaiamala Director V Narayanan as the next

Chairman of the Indian Space Reasearch Organisation (ISRO) and Secretary

of the Department of Space.

It was announced by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet on Tuesday

evening, according to reports received here.

Mr Narayanan will replace incumbent Chief S Somanath from January 14.

The tenure of Mr Narayanan's appointment will be for a period of two years,

or until further orders, whichever comes earlier, a notification issued by the

Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions said.

Normally the Director of VSSC would be made the ISRO Chairman and perhaps

for the first time the LPSC Director was elevated to the post.

It may be noted that Mr Somanath, who helmed ISRO since January 22 after

elevated from the post of VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram Director, has several

success to his credit that included the historic third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3

which made a soft landing on the hitherto unexplored South Polar region of Moon

thereby making India the first country to achieve this feat, the Aditya-L1 first mission

to the sun and the latest being the first ever spae docking experiment technology

demonstration by launching two SpadeX satellites Chaser and Target onboared

PSLV-C60 on Decemebr 30, 2024, propelling India to become the fourth country

after US, Russia and China to achieve this feat.

The space docking will take place from 0800 hrs on January 8, ISRO said ina

post on X.

"Watch the SpaDeX Docking Event Programme. Date: 9th January 2025.

Time: 8:00 AM onwards", it said.c22

UNI GV 0710