The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by PM has approved the appointment of Shri V. Narayanan, Director. Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Valiamala as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, Space Commission for a period of two years with effect from 14th January or until further orders, whichever is earlier. Therefore, V Narayanan will assume office on January 14, succeeding the current ISRO chief, S Somanath. V Narayanan will also take charge as the secretary of the department of space.
Currently, Narayanan is the director of the LPSC, one of the major centres of the ISRO having its headquarters at Valiamala in Thiruvananthapuram, with a unit in Bengaluru.
The ISRO has been in the news recently for launching SpaDex, an indigenously built space docking technology crucial for ambitious missions like Chandrayaan 4 and Gaganyaan. It has put India in an elite list of countries who have that technology. The other countries are the United States, Russia and China.