Kiran Kumar is new ISRO Chief

Kumar will succeed K S Radhakrishnan, who retired on December 31 after steering the space agency for a successful Mars mission and launch of GSLV rockets. Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences was given the temporary charge of Isro chairman for a



month. 

By convention, Secretary, Department of Space is the Isro chairman as well as the Space Commission chairman.  

A 1971 graduate from National College, Bengaluru, Kiran Kumar obtained his masters degree in electronics from Bangalore University in 1973 and MTech in physical engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru in 1975. After joining Isro in 1975, Kumar contributed to the design and development of several payloads ranging from Bhaskara (1979) to Chandrayaan-1 (2008) missions. 

He was closely involved with the Mars mission too. He played a crucial role in realising sub-one metre resolution images using Cartosat-2 satellite, launched in 2007.

He is a fellow of National Academy of Engineers and corresponding member of International Academy of Astronautics.