Ramabhadran Aravamudan (7 October 1936 – 4 August 2021) was an Indian space scientist and engineer who was associated with the Indian space programme from its initial days in 1962. Through his career he served as the director of the

Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) is India's first rocket launching station and was established on 21 November 1963. Operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), it is located in Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, which ...

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The spaceport is located on an isl ...

, and the

ISRO Satellite centre The U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), formerly ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) () is an ISRO centre for the design, development, and construction of Indian satellites. It was established in 1972 as Indian Scientific Satellite Project (ISSP) in Pe ...

. He was a recipient of the 2009

Aryabhata Award The Aryabhata Award or Aryabhatta Award is an annual award, presented to individuals with notable lifetime contributions in the field of astronautics and aerospace technology in India. It was instituted by the Astronautical Society of India (ASI ...

from the Astronautical Society of India.

Early life

Aravamudan was born into a middle-class family in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

in the then-undivided India. He obtained a degree in electronics engineering from the

Madras Institute of Technology Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) is an engineering institute located in Chromepet, Chennai, India. It is one of the four autonomous constituent colleges of Anna University. It was established in 1949 by Chinnaswami Rajam as the first sel ...

, where he was a first-rank holder.

Career

Aravamudan started his career with the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) at the

Trombay Trombay is an eastern suburb of Mumbai (Bombay), India. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is located there. History In 1548, Trombay and Chembur Chembur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, ͡ʃembuːɾ is an upmarket large subur ...

Reactor Control Division. He was amongst the first to join the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...

(ISRO), then known as the

Indian National Committee for Space Research The Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was established by India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in 1962, on the suggestion of the scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, ...

(INCOSPAR), when he quit his job at the DAE in 1962 to move to

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the largest and ...

to work with

Vikram Sarabhai Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (12 August 1919 – 30 December 1971) was an Indian physicist and astronomer who initiated space research and helped to develop nuclear power in India. Often regarded as the "''Father of Indian space program''", Sar ...

, considered the father of India's space research. During this time, he also trained at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...

on assembling and launching small rockets for collecting scientific data. When he was working with ISRO's rocket launching station at

Thumba Thumba is a coastal area of Thiruvananthapuram city, the capital of Kerala, India. Location and geography Thumba is a vast village bordering Menamkulam in the east, St. Dominic's Vettucaud in the north, and Kochuthura in the south; towards its ...

, some of the most historic images of the rocket launch programme were captured by the French street photographer,

Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French artist and Humanist photography, humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 135 film, 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street ...

. Aravamudan documented the early days of the Indian space programme in a book, '' ISRO: A Personal History'', that he co-authored with his wife Gita Aravamudan. In the book, he writes about the conceptualisation of the programme, including selection of the launch site, the telemetry systems, and how the organisation worked with meagre resources owing to international embargoes and sanctions. In the early 1970s, he served as the director of

. In the 1980s, he became the associate director of

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) is a major space research centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), focusing on rocket and space vehicles for India's satellite programme. It is located in Thiruvananthapuram, in the India ...

. In 1989, he took over as the director of

and in 1994, he moved to Bangalore as the director of

ISRO Satellite Centre The U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), formerly ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) () is an ISRO centre for the design, development, and construction of Indian satellites. It was established in 1972 as Indian Scientific Satellite Project (ISSP) in Pe ...

. He retired from ISRO in 1997. Aravamudan was a recipient of the

from the Astronautical Society of India in 2009 and the award for Outstanding Achievement from the

in 2010.

Personal life

Aravamudan was married to Gita Aravamudan, a journalist. The couple had two sons. Aravamudan died on 4 August 2021, at his house in Bangalore. He was aged 84. He had been diagnosed with

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as renal failure or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney fa ...

a year earlier.

Books

* '' ISRO: A Personal History'' co-authored with his wife, Gita

Awards

* The Aryabhata Award from The Astronautical Society of India (2009) * Outstanding Achievement Award of ISRO (2010)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aravamudan, R. 1936 births 2021 deaths People from Chennai Indian Space Research Organisation people