S Somnath, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram has been promoted to the post of Secretary in the Government of India.

The Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet has approved the promotion of Somnath, who is a distinguished scientist with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to the apex scale equivalent to the post of secretary with effect from January 1, 2020.

According to convention, the elevation makes way for Somnath to be appointed as the next Chairman of the ISRO. In the recent past R K Radhakrishnan and A S Kiran Kumar, held the post and then became ISRO Chief.

The term of the present Chairman of ISRO, K Sivan is upto January 15, 2021. He was appointed by the present government to succeed Kiran Kumar in January 2018 with a three-year term.

Somnath is an expert in systems engineering of launch vehicles. He made contributions Project Director of GSLV Mk3 since 2010, he has steered the successful development and performances of launch vehicles, especially GSLV MK3, which placed the Chandrayaan 2 mission successfully into its lunar orbit.

A B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from TKM College of Engineering, Kollam, Kerala University, Somnath has represented India in the UN meetings on Space, International Astronautical Federation meetngs etc.