Satish Dhawan

Satish Dhawan was an Indian aerospace engineer and applied mathematician who served as chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from 1972 to 1984, succeeding founder Vikram Sarabhai. Under his leadership ISRO achieved several of its formative milestones, including the country's first satellite launch vehicle flight and the successful orbiting of India's first satellites, and he is widely credited with building the organizational and technical foundation that transformed ISRO from an early research program into an operational space agency capable of launching its own satellites. Before and during his ISRO tenure he was also director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore for nearly three decades, where his own research specialty was boundary layer theory and turbulence in fluid dynamics, and he is considered a pioneer of experimental research in fluid dynamics in India. India's principal satellite launch center, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota island, is named in his honor.