Acclaiming India’s ‘Rocket Man’! Tamil Nadu honors ISRO chief K. Sivan with APJ Abdul Kalam Award
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Chennai, Aug. 19: India is making many spectacular achievements in space technology. ISRO is standing strong on the space horizon of the world. The person behind all this achievement or he is part of this achievement is ISRO’s Chairman Dr. K Sivan. Now, praising this staller work, Tamil Nadu govt. Awarded Dr. K Sivan with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Award on Thursday.
The Kalam award is to honour those who work for promoting scientific growth, humanities and students' welfare and the awardees should hail from Tamil Nadu. The award carries 8 gm gold medal, Rs. five lakh in cash and a citation.
A native of Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, the citation hailed him as "Rocket Man" and traced his humble origins to his splendid rise in career which includes a stint as director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Liquid Propulsion Centre. Mr Sivan's leadership led to the "historical achievement of most successful GSLV flight with indigenous cryogenic stage."
Award citation also read, “Under his tutelage, ISRO successfully launched Chandrayaan 2, the second mission to the moon on July 22 and he was the chief architect of SITARA, a 6D trajectory simulation software”.
The 62-year-old space scientist was a first graduate in his family, who got a Bachelor's degree in engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1980. Completing his Master's degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, he later joined ISRO and he was a recipient of several awards including Dr Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1999).
Mr. Sivan was scheduled to receive the award at the Independence Day celebrations at Fort St George in Chennai.
Following the death of former President A P J Abdul Kalam in 2015, former Chief Minister, late J Jayalalithaa, had then announced an award in his name. She had also announced that Dr Kalam's birthday (October 15) will be observed as "Youth Renaissance Day."